TOO good to be true

ive had this on my mind lately, how many of you have had that call, you know the one you have been waiting on, the one that would change your whole operation, ive had a few now and ive put posts on here saying what i was going to get. ill give you a few of mine that i remember

the 1st one was big i started a big ordeal on here for everyone, i got a call to scrap several big trucks or semi trucks on a farm about 45min to an hour away, i went as far as to call the scrap yard down there to get roll offs, i called a few times with nothing ever coming of it.

i got a call from a wrecker service a few weeks ago, again i posted it here somewhere, this wrecker service i use all the time and have bought 15+ cars from him, anyway he give me a lead on over 100 cars and possibly 100s, ive talked to the dad and the son on two separate occasions and sounded very interested but have never heard anything from them, my wrecker guy says they will come around but its been over a month now.

one of the first ones i put on here i had met a plumber and was suppose to get all his hot water heaters i was going to buy them for $3 i think it was, it wasnt till later i realized how i screwed up, i asked him about the old copper and he said he sold it to the scrapyard, well a few weeks later you guessed it a load of hot water heaters it seen him unloading.

pretty minor but we were buying a ford explorer back when we still had a list at a local pawn shop, steve wrote the explorer on the list while we were sitting inthe turning lane to pull in, i said we don't write down the car till its on the trailer, he said we are here, at that moment the pawn shop called and said the guy just came in and paid his interest all i could do was laugh.

i got one tomorrow actually two, im not gonna say what they are but its two identical vehicles one wrecked and one with a blown motor, dustin said he could have them swapped in less than a day, i told him not to count anything till they are on the trailer,

these being said, ive had plenty of good luck and am grateful for everything good and bad that has happened to me, you have to have BAD to be able to appreciate the good.

what are some of you guys and gals too good to be trues?

Had a call a couple of days ago about bidding on evacuating and pulling the compressors on 150+ vending machines and 3 door reach-in coolers. Gave a bid and forgot about it. They called back today and asked if I can start on it tomorrow. They need them done by next friday and I was the only one who bid that came in at a price they thought was reasonable and able to meet their deadline. Surprisingly enough, I've fielded this same call a few times in the last couple of years. I'm pretty sure it has been the same machines, just different owners!

I'd been scrapping about two years and was at a garage where I'd buy brake hubs and catalytic converters. A guy who happened to be there suggested I contact a junk yard a couple miles away. I went there and the owner asked what I pay for a pile of stuff (just about everything you could think of related to tearing down cars). The pile was about 20 feet at the base and 7-8 feet high. I'd never had anything like it and told him I had no idea how to bid it. Finally offered him $100 and he accepted. I only had a 4'x8' trailer. The scrap yard was 50 miles away. It would take forever to haul all this. Decided this was the time to get a bigger trailer which the wife had been telling me I needed to do. Contacted the trailer sales shop, They offered me $300 off a new 18' dual axle car carrier due to defective paint. I took it. I used it to take the tractor with pallet forks there and started hauling. He threw in another pile of fenders and doors, several motors and transmissions and another pile of brake hubs. That buy completely paid for the trailer and several hundred dollars profit. I've gotten some good deals since but none to match that one.

i"ve done warehouses burnt houses and a couple opf commercial builidngs a farmand a "junk collectors who passed on i find offering percentage beets bidding if i am wrong i still don"t lose if i am right they get $$$$ on every load and don"T worry about me cherry picking

I install satellite tv for the farmers out here in the country. They always had old implements overgrown on the edge of the tree lines. Almost everyone let me take them free when I asked. About 4 yrs. Ago did an install for a guy who owns 26 acres. In 1966 he started stock piling cars and metal in hopes to pay for his kids college. Well kids went to college and so did grandkids and no one had interest in scrapping it.
Well that's my cup of tea if u will. Stopped by one day about two months back asked of we could cit a deal and I clean it out. His response I don't want or need any money if it will help you and your family then have at it. Only stipulation, no cherry picking got to take everything. Well u got it. Got to quit a job I didn't like after 6 yrs. Got two roll offs out there one for light iron one for prepared steel. So very lucky

bought a 94 camaro for $600, put new seat covers and floor mats in it and cleaned it inside and out, waxed it and got good pictures for my craigslist listing sold it 2 weeks later for $1400

http://sdrv.ms/ZT5Pxm

Looking back i should have kept the car or held out for more money, but there is nothing wrong with a quick flip.

when i seen the ad on craigslist for a running 94 camaro for $600 i thought it was too good to be true, if i hadnt gone the extra mile to check it out i wouldve missed the deal

the moral of this story is dont always assume something is too good to be true without following up on it as it might turn out to be the deal of a lifetime

Well mine was actually a "too true to be good". I went to Dayton OH several years ago to look at an electric motor and bid on it. The contact guy said it was a 1935 DC motor being taken out of a wind tunnel and was too big for the current contractor to do anything with it. It tipped an 80 ton crane when they dragged the rotor out of the stator. I figured "how big can an electreic motor really be" and thought the crane operator had just goofed but they told me to wait and see how big it really was. The thing had landed on a second story I-beam and concrete floor and broke it sending concrete down into the battery room below. They got another 70 ton crane and together got the rotor down and then the stator. When I got there, they were sitting about 12 inches deep into the asphalt parking lot. I was astounded at the size. It had a 24 foot shaft 18 inches in diameter with thick brass rings on it. I could walk into the stator and couldn't reach high enough to touch the top inside it. The windings were actually one inch copper bars that had copper staple shaped ends welded on to make the connections from one to another. This thing is the most massive motor I've ever seen (wish I had taken pictures of it). They had tried to cut it up with a torch, but noone could cut the shaft or the 8 inch thick pieces of the rotor. I said I couldn't bid on it, but bid a price for them to pay me to remove it. I lost that one and someone got it for a penny a pound. I would sure love to know how much copper they got from that monstrosity. I now know from other jobs that I could have cut it with a liquid Oxy and Propane rig or even an Oxylance (I haven't used one yet but saw someone cutting 5 inch stainless with it.) So this one turned out to be too true to be good for me.

Here is the most recent one i can think of

Was doing a pickup at the local bus barn (school bus yard) and a driver came up, asked if i did house calls.
Said he was ex landscaper and needed to clean out old stuff.
Then he asked if i could take a rusty plow, mm1.

Gave him a card, he said it would be a week or two( snow on the ground)

That must have been 2 months ago...

i had a ausume job cleaning up a motorcycle salvage yard. bid it @ 20%-40% depending on volume, quality of material, time, in the end when we worked everything out i got 20% for sitting in a bobcat filling dumpsters. in 10 weeks i moved 172 tons of scrap in 52 dumpsters @ Tin (shred) +cast alum/copper. which allowed my wife to take a extra month of materinity leave. it was really nice driving to work in my jeep and not pulling a trailer, coming home in the evenings and not having to sort and clean.