My car has feelings.
Nice article, I learned something new today.
#1
As much as enthusiasts fawn over, dote on, and rub diapers across their rides, it's hard for them to comprehend that, at every other layer of the automotive strata, cars are just commodities. Consumer goods. And like other consumer goods, they have a limited life span. No matter how well they're made, how well they've been maintained or how fanatical the owner, some day they will all give up the ghost.
#2
My car has feelings.Nice article, I learned something new today.
#3
Interesting stuff
#4
Aha! The truth comes out!I knew this could only come from Wes. Well done.
Passatworld - Mrs 1.8t
Bolt Industries - Miscellaneous hard and soft goods for watercooled VWs
Compared to a British roadster, all Volkswagens are reliable!
Buy my hot mom-wagon or my .:Rabbit! - pm me for details!
#5
Quote, originally posted by atomicalex » I knew this could only come from Wes. Well done. Thanks, Kath. I've been to lots of shredder sites! My grandfather owned a salvage yard for 50 years, which I'd managed for the past 12. I've driven the truck to Miller Compressing with a stack of bodies on the back a few times.
The chunked-up piece of steel in the article? That came home with me from the scrap yard once. It's now a paperweight on my desk here.
#6
I should have remembered that! D'oh!My hunks of metal are going in the other direction - slugs to parts. I probably have $150 of scrap in my cube.
Passatworld - Mrs 1.8t
Bolt Industries - Miscellaneous hard and soft goods for watercooled VWs
Compared to a British roadster, all Volkswagens are reliable!
Buy my hot mom-wagon or my .:Rabbit! - pm me for details!
#7
Quote, originally posted by Wes@motivemag » The chunked-up piece of steel in the article? That came home with me from the scrap yard once. And it's the remnant of which Dodge Spirit R/T--the first one, or the second?
Originally Posted by alleghenyman
#8
I just can't believe the disassemblers would take the time to remove the tiny mercury switches in the few cars that use them. They probably are paid by the car and want to work quicker than that.
#9
Quote, originally posted by features@motivemag » No matter how well they're made, how well they've been maintained or how fanatical the owner, some day they will all give up the ghost. And SOME will live on to turn into a pile of S*** and get auctioned for 1 billion times their original value.
#10
Quote, originally posted by ctrapeni » I just can't believe the disassemblers would take the time to remove the tiny mercury switches in the few cars that use them. They probably are paid by the car and want to work quicker than that. It's a royal pain, to be sure, but both the EPA and state environmental agencies take mercury recovery VERY seriously. Fortunately, not many cars have mercury-bearing parts anymore, and the ones that do label what components are affected. The last Lincoln MKX that I drove had a tag on the door frame pointing out mercury in the headlamps and navigation screen.
#11
Quote, originally posted by ctrapeni » I just can't believe the disassemblers would take the time to remove the tiny mercury switches in the few cars that use them. They probably are paid by the car and want to work quicker than that. I wouldn't think they would really have a choice. They certainly couldn't send the mercury through the shredder. I guess that begs the question, does the EPA make regular visits? If they do, what do they test, the soil and nearby water sources?
Very cool article, thanks for the read
#12
Quote, originally posted by timetravel » I guess that begs the question, does the EPA make regular visits? If they do, what do they test, the soil and nearby water sources? You're not that far off. In the case of our yard, it wasn't the EPA that made visits but the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. They would check to make sure that if there were cars parked in the yard, none of them contained fluids or refrigerant, and would also inspect the processing area to make sure there was a bucket of mercury switches, various bins for sorted scrap, et cetera.
At various points around the property are monitoring wells which are analyzed annually. We ran into a problem because there used to be a foundry next door to our property, and the foundry would backfill their back lot with used casting sand. Not only that, but they had a habit of dumping out old barrels of chemicals on the ground instead of paying for disposal. We had to pay for a series of wells to be dug at various points to prove that the contaminated soil and water on our property wasn't the result of our activity, but had migrated over from next door.
#14
Quote, originally posted by TCabeen » Dugg. x2
Motive is doing a great job with these articles!
Automotive shredders are incredibly specialized and thoroughly badass pieces of equipment that, as their name implies, will turn a full-size car into chunks no larger than a clenched fist - in less than twenty seconds. There are two flavors of shredders in use, the first of which uses a toothed steel drum to tear a car body into tiny shards, the other relying on a spinning drum with violently swinging anvils to pummel and shatter anything fed into it. Anything being the pivotal word. Cast-iron engine blocks are broken into fragments. Steel torsion bars are snapped like pretzel sticks. Truck frames are torn into pocket squares. Keeping the drum of a shredder spinning requires an enormous amount of power - the average electric motor used to drive one is rated at 7000 horsepower. To put it a different way, the combined output of thirty Crown Victoria Police Interceptors, straining at full throttle, wouldn't be the equal of one shredder motor.
I don't know why but I find this info fascinating.!
#15
It should be noted that BMW and Volvo lead the way in recycleability, both being upwards of 85% recyclable.EU regulations going into effect within a decade or so will require something like 95% recycleability.
#16
Check out "Boneyard" on the History Channel. Nice series.Dave.
#17
And to think that some people posting on these forums still think that hybrids' nickel metal hydride batteries will just be dumped into landfills instead of being recycled for their valuable metals (much more valuable than the common lead acid car batteries that are 97% recycled), if not reused in a way similar to how salvage yards sell salvage parts from cars that enter the yard.
#18
#19
Great article to read and remember how one of the most complicated machines that almost everyone can own can be dismantled and recycled into another machine.
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