I've been crunching the numbers for scrapping cars. It looks too good to be true.

Originally Posted by zeusophobia

It looks too good to be true, somebody tell me if it is.

So I buy a car at auction for $200-$300. I take all the copper out, call that a bonus, and I scrap the car for $400 or more.

Steel is $195 a ton and the average car weighs 5,000 lbs. I get even more if I go for a truck or van, less if I'm stupid and buy a Fiat.



So what the hell am I missing? This looks like easy cash, and I read in the newer cars there is upwards of 40lbs worth of copper.

I can tell you one thing you are missing and that is a clue.
The average weight for a car is no where near 5k lbs lol More like 3000-3500 on average.Also it will and would take awhile to strip out all of the copper.
Again cars sale for more at auctions and then you have fees on top of that.

So sounds to me like you need to start crunching on some more numbers!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Focker

I can tell you one thing you are missing and that is a clue.
The average weight for a car is no where near 5k lbs lol More like 3000-3500 on average.Also it will and would take awhile to strip out all of the copper.
Again cars sale for more at auctions and then you have fees on top of that.

So sounds to me like you need to start crunching on some more numbers!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also there may be 40lbs of INSULATED copper but even in the summer time when prices where good you would be lucky to get around $1lb.