Well, thanks to requiring titles to "scrap" a car these days, you happen across these gems of douchebaggery......and to think, this exact scrapyard wonders why everything I take them has the roof caved in 
http://muncie.craigslist.org/cto/3712572333.html
I have odds that they gave the guy a whopping $145 for that.....
The last time i scrapped a car, they argued with me about the scrap price they were going to give me despite advertising their current price/ton up front.
I suppose this means i did it right.
i know this might sound weird, but scrapyards are operated by people... and sometimes those people buy cars and sell them... and sometimes those people in the junkyards decide that a car that someone brings in for scrap is too nice/unique/rare/cool to wind up in the crusher so they sell them as is- which is legal, since they hold the title and a lot of the time they are licensed car dealers..
i know of a rather large junkyard (one of the biggest in the country) that buys cars just like the one in the OP from all over the country to sell for a profit. i got my Nova from them back in '99- they bought it out in Cali with the front end caved in and 2 head shaped spider webs in the windshield after it hit a light pole, showed me a polaroid of it when they loaded it in the flat bed to haul to MN.. they got it drivable with a front clip and subframe from a 69 Nova from Texas and i traded them a 78 Trans Am with a blown head gasket and $1200 for it...
In reply to novaderrik:
Yeah. I don't get the problem. I am glad they aren't cutting up that old Stude. It looks fairly clean.
I'd rather see that sold than crushed. It wouldn't be worth $2K to me but perhaps someone.
I didn't think junkers could sell whole cars. May be different state to state.
In reply to novaderrik:
Its still a good reason as to why everything I take to them is beat to hell first. This place is already berkeleying people over on scrap price, because they're the only place in a 45min driving radius. But to see them doing this reaffirms exactly why I do what I do. They will never make 20x profit off of me. 
The pancaked newyorker turbo on top of the '91 shebly z turbo was hilarious to see their reaction though.
914Driver wrote: I didn't think junkers could sell whole cars. May be different state to state.
They aren't supposed to be able to in Indiana.....or at least they weren't able to until cars had to have a title......
914Driver wrote: I didn't think junkers could sell whole cars. May be different state to state.
Around here, junk (salvage) yards must have the title and they do not re-sell whole cars, just parts. I don't think it's a legal issue, just their preference. Most of the local salvage yards are a bunch of overpriced thieves that i refuse to do business with. Scrap yards take cars without title and they do not sell them either. They are shredded pretty quickly. Some of the yard workers used to buy stuff from people before it went across the scales, but the big company we do business with nipped that in the bud.
yamaha wrote: In reply to novaderrik: Its still a good reason as to why everything I take to them is beat to hell first. This place is already berkeleying people over on scrap price, because they're the only place in a 45min driving radius. But to see them doing this reaffirms exactly why I do what I do. They will never make 20x profit off of me.
That really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. If you aren't willing to market the vehicle to get top dollar, then what's wrong with them doing it?
Buy low, sell high. If there's something wrong with that, I'll send my kids over to your house to eat dinner tonight, because that's the only way I know of to feed them!
I doubt that they put a gun to the head of the previous owner to prevent them from taking a bunch of pictures, putting an ad on Craigslist, and dealing with all the CL-weirdos to try to sell the car for as close to $2k as they can get.
In reply to bravenrace:
In those cases, both were marketed....but recieved only tire kickers and I'll come buy it next week. Those people underestimated my claim of sending them to the crusher, and one guy was actually pissed about it. IMHO, if they are paying less than scrap price, they shouldn't have the capability to resell entire cars. Its an ethics thing I suppose.
They should have the capability to pay whatever the seller will take without coercion or fraud, and the ability to sell it for whatever the buyer will pay, without coercion or fraud. No "ethics" warnings there at all, to me.
Personally, I think this is great. A lot of time cars get junked because someone lost their storage, someone died, or a general non-car person just wanted what they considered an eyesore gone. I would much rather have this old Studebaker go to someone who can restore it or use the parts than be shredded to make a new skyscraper in Bejing.
Here in Washington State the junkyards can and do sell whole cars. I'd rather see those cars provide cheap transportion then go to the crusher.
There really isn't any way anyone could ever sell a car I scrapped.
Usually they arrive in chunks - but the one time I drove one into a junkyard it was a Chevette that landed wrong after the last jump, was summarily shot and then driven without coolant when it refused to die.
I'm with the "shrug" crowd...
I'd say it's up to whoever owned the car to be willing to market it for more, or recognize they're passing up that opportunity. Correct or incorrect, anybody taking a car to a scrapper has consciously decided "this car isn't worth enough to make it worth the trouble of selling." Once the scrap place owns it, they're just another entity with a car with a title; they get whatever the market will bear for all metal they take in. If they get more for that particular piece of metal without shredding it, that sounds like a win all around...
What's the alternative? They can't accept anything that could be turned back into a car? They can't mark a car up past x% or $x more than they paid for it?
Buy for as little as possible and sell for as high as possible. In capitalist America, that's how it works. It's what puts food on the table at my house. If I was in the junk business, you can bet I'd be doing the same thing every chance I got.
In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:
Mine are completely destroyed as well.......I once cut up a jeep cherokee and took it as bits of sheet metal. 
On that note, they hung up the phone when I offered 2x its weight in scrap value.....then again I expected that.
I thought the engine went in the front of those....
Perhaps they're abusing a geographical monopoly, but if there's enough demand someone else would open a junkyard. I don't see a problem with selling a car someone brought in as junk if there's someone that wants it, better than it being scrapped.
If they're paying $145 for cars then open a place down the street paying $200. You could ship 'em to Ohio and sell them to a scrap yard for double your money. (Pick'n'pull pays $375 - THEY TOW!)
Around here the scrapyards sometimes have a row of cars out front for sale. I know of several cars that went over the scales and are back on the road! Latest that was saved was a 1965 Ford Ranchero. Another is a 1930s fire truck.
A friend of mine works at one of these yards and pulled a 1972 Mercedes 350SL home and put it back on the road. Car had a melted front wheel bearing and a broken windshield and had been sitting for 5 years before it was dragged across the scales. I tried to buy this car from the owner for years (before the broken windshield), but she constantly priced it above perfect condition price so I made good offers. Apparently the broken windshield set her off and had it hauled off.
We have one yard that has a row of businesses that were owned by one man. Shop on one end sold thrift store stuff with lots of scrap art stuff. Next was a place to buy pipe, angle iron, beams, aluminum sheets, diamond plate and such. Next was a car lot/repair shop then a big body shop that was his original business. Then it had a U-Pull-It auto parts yard and finally a heavy junk shop with everything else...trailer mounted generator/welders, tractors, lawn mowers, compressors, small engine stuff, tools, etc. Finally was an old residence motel that many of his yard help lived in.
Employees there worked hard not to lose their job because picking was a perk...but it had to go through the yard boss who answered to the front guys who answered to the owner. Stealing got you fired fast. Hard work often resulted in big freebies...one fellow even split off and started his own ornamental ironworks. Mostly makes fancy entrance doors and windows. Most of his equipment was once scrap.
If it made it out of the yard to scrap, it had been picked clean. Then the old man died and the wife started trying to control everything and was convinced everyone was stealing. Fired a lot of the old crew and replaced them with people who DID steal her blind.
Bruce
My brother sold a truck to a scrap yard and still calls me mad everytime he sees it on the road. He said next one is going to be set on fire first.
I'm with the "free-market" crowd. I feel the same way about "flippers". If you can (without actively trying to hide any problems) buy low and sell high, all the power to you.
914Driver wrote: I didn't think junkers could sell whole cars. May be different state to state.
They do here... and there's usually a special lot just for the ones too nice to destroy, with a signboard in the lobby that has a list of them and why they're there, so DIY guys or used-car lots can buy them and repair them. '03 XXX front hit, '02 YYY blown trans, etc. Some of the yards will repair them themselves (hey, they have parts on hand, right?) and sell them. The only problem they have is if the car was totalled, which requires a whole lot of paperwork to get back on the road (all parts used must have a paper trail, this is to prevent theft and vin switching like in Gone in 60 Seconds) so I assume the ones they sell in repaired condition were junked for mechanical reasons. Which is an easier fix, at any rate.
Count me in with the ones who have absolutely no problem with it. When you take a car to a junkyard, you're just selling your car to a business, nothing more or less. What they decide to do with it is their problem.
I KNOW that the cars I've junked went right into the shredder, because I've only junked odd cars with no parts value because the only guy in town who actually had one of those just scrapped it...
Yeah. Making a profit should be illegal.
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