I went to a bid opening for some 40' city buses yesterday. I purposely bid low, assuming one of the yards that I buy cut-out engines from would be a bit higher. I really don't make any money on the scrap end of these deals any ways. I was disappointed that "my" yard did not place a bid and another yard's bid was much higher than mine.
I talked with the winning bidder and thought we had an agreement in principle to deal on the engines. I called him a couple of hours later and it was a different story. It seems he doesn't want to (or can't) process the buses at his small yard. It sounded like he is going to do what he has done in the past; have them towed from Milwaukee to a processor in Chicago where they just get shredded.
A while back, I had a customer looking for bus parts, so I suggested he call the processor in Chicago. He did so and was told they would not sell any parts.
With the towing cost; the winning bidder will be into the buses for about $80/ton. Shred is $85-$100/ton around here right now. I can only figure he might make $10-$20/ton X 14 buses X 10-12 tons net/bus, so maybe around $3000 on the deal. I would have given about $5000 for the 14 engines and he still would have had the bus bodies to scrap.
Still trying to figure out how I could pull this one out of the ####er. I hate to see a deal get away.
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