I found this fascinating.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/auction-to-crusher-12-weeks-in-the-lives-of-two-cars-at-a-self-service-wrecking-yard/

Very interesting, cheers!

Yep - enjoyed that too. Cheers for the link!

Interesting story.

best way to recycle cars

I like the pizza bucket :)

I've been thinking about this all day, regarding some points raised in the article.
A long time ago I studied economics, and we were asked to discuss the concept of Giffen Goods. This is a paradox, which some writers claim cannot exist - it is the buying of more of a product as the price rises.
Our class discussion centred around broken biscuits: a housewife buys an amount of these weekly as it's a good, cheap filler food. But as the cost of living increases - and her income stays the same - she will purchase more packs of broken biscuits even though the price has risen, because it is still a lower cost alternative to more nourishing food, which may have become proportionally more expensive.
As I recall, the class discussion was a stalemate.

These car parts though, could be true Giffen Goods.
The average income in the States has fallen dramatically in real terms. Cars which were once economically worthless have found a new life as recycleables, and are increasing in cost as piecemeal items. But becoming more popular as well.
And whilst this goes on the general cost of living is increasing too.

Anyone else have any thoughts here!

Some of the comments were equally interesting, who would have thought they'd consider that two mainstream Jap cars both over 15yo would be worth saving, the attitude in the past is that last years ,model is, well last years, and that a 5yo car is out of date and should be upgraded, and a 10yo is scrap.Self evident that cheap credit is a thing of the past there now, and perhaps a realisation that America has been very wasteful of resources and unsustainable environmental practices. Long overdue too.

It's a weird fact most people don't want to accept. They (and me probably) will throw every excuse in the book at you, but the reality is the cars you and I drive don't make economic sense. What makes sense is a $500 beater you have to throw a couple hundy at every month just to keep it running. You're still WAY ahead financially compared to buying something that costs enough not to break down (if there is such a thing).

It's the reality that every single person that comes on this board asking about economy doesn't want to hear: the most economic car you can have, is the one you already have. Failing that, buy a cheapie, and forget the fuel bill.

But nobody drives a particular car because of economics.unless they HAVE to.

Fascinating stuff. People are weird.

People are weird alright, they wake up one day and decide that their car is too much of a gas guzzler, and are willing to outlay thousands more to get something smaller and more economic.Add to that interest and depreciation and insurance costs since the cars worth more, and repairs too since more modern cars are more expensive to fix.What was that about saving money again!Most of the truly expensive problems you have with older cars are mostly preventable, when you go and visit a scrapyard its alarming the amount of cars that haven't ended up there because of being written off in a crash, they're undamaged if a little grubby and worn and are there because of cooked motors/blown head gaskets due to bad cooling system maintenance, dead auto's for the same reasons, broken timing belts and perhaps a collection of silly WOF problems. Oh and LAPSED REGISTRATIONS! The latter is the worst problem, making a car uneconomic to recommission into service just because of a money grabbing bureaucratic govt policy, they're environmental crims as well.The economic and environmental cost of making and importing another one is huge.