What did you do today?

[nebuchenezer]

This was a violent end though. Apparently it went around a fast left hander, got out of shape and was T boned by a Shogun doing 40-50 mph.
I didn't know at the time but I don't agree with cars like this being stripped for parts - there was claret on the passenger seat. You try not to think about it.

Many moons ago I bought a pair of Granada seats from a scrappy outside of Aberdoom. I turned a blind eye to the amount of claret that had to be jetwashed off the fabric.

About 3 hours after buying them I found out the car belonged to my mates old man and he had been decapitated in the car the night before.

I binned them.

[LynehamHerc]

Fucking hell!

Talk about a nasty surprise.

[nebuchenezer]

….

[SiC]

I know on co-part USA some of the cars going through are pretty horrific on the ones marked as biohazard. Many you can see the bullet holes and the strawberry jam left.

[Alf892]

Whilst there was a dry afternoon I brought the A55 out for an appraisal.






So current jobs lined up are sorting out the intermittent Windtone horns, find out why the fuel gauge doesn't work, flush out Cooling System and replace Antifreeze, Oil and Filter change and grease up, feed the seats, clean carpets and reattach rear passenger armrest.

Favourite on those windtones would be dried out grease on the pin that operates them (as long as points connections are clean) and very easy to remove and clean.

So easy in fact I don't know why I put up with the ones on my Rover not working properly for about 10 years....

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Glorious. I can smell the BMC'ness from here.

[ghosty]

I think they're selling anything they can to make money and pay wages - it came from Copart next door. If Brexit happens, I suspect U Pull It will be fucked as it relies very heavily on Eastern European business. I bet 70% of customers are Polish/Lithuanian etc and you're always seeing vans and trucks loading up with cars and spares.

Leavers don't think about that however.

I've noticed the Polish less and less and I've been visiting York for a while. Back when I 'had' (I use the term loosely) an A4 quattro, you'd be fighting for VAG parts from York as eastern Europeans were buying PD TDIs by the literal truckload, and any cars in the VAG section were being constantly pillaged. You'd be guaranteed to see at least one Polish registered Ducato in the car park at any given time. However even cars as unusual as the B5 A4 quattro were in stock...

Last time I went, there weren't any Polish people there - everyone was English, and there was even a sense of community amongst those looking for parts - everyone was helping everyone else find parts etc. It was odd.

Sadly I've also noticed over the last two years, support for older cars has almost completely dried up - in 2017, when I had the A4 (which was N plate), I could actually find parts for it easily, as well as older cars like E36s, 190Es, Audi 80s etc. There was a fucking Saab 96 in there for a good old while... Now there's next to nothing older than about fifteen years, and a lot of it is tat nobody even wants parts for, or they're so cheap it isn't worth going to UPI for. Granted, I do find the odd useful part there, and it's all luck of the draw: for one, the website isn't kept up to date - on one trip I was pleasantly surprised to find an intact Volvo 850 there that yielded many useful parts - I hadn't been there for it though, I was going to look at a V70, alas it'd been pillaged of its entire interior and all the engine ancillaries.
~
Daft bugger left the SC-805 radio with the code written on it though - I took that, UPI charged £15, they're £50 on eBay (Volvo OEM radios of the period are Alpine and sound very good). That went in the car as it worked properly and had a CD player, so a winner for me and paid for the trip.

~

I'm not inclined to go to UPI again, the place is going downhill a bit IMO, but that could just because my cars aren't getting any younger. If I'd bought a snotter Golf/Bora I'd be all over the place for any better parts I could find.

I've noticed they're also stocking a lot less French cars than they used to, and they've basically stopped taking in Rovers altogether. Granted, the odd interesting 90s car comes in, but they're often in sorry states, and word quickly gets around and anything of worth disappears.

It's definitely not the place it was two years ago...

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Times are changing. There is a complete Rover 600 in there, but don't forget that the reason there are no Rovers in there is because there are none left. The majority of their stuff comes from Copart next door. An E36 is rare in there because there are so few left.

I go there to buy parts to resell. E46 junk is of minimal interest (330i/330d front brakes apart) as there are so many being broken, the parts are valueless. Ditto E39. Z3's are good news and are petrol E90 and 1 Series shit but only for certain parts.

When the price of scrap is high, a high percentage of porridge cars get cubed straight away. Vectras, Mondeos, Meganes etc - there are only so many you can stock. A BMW or Merc is always put in the yard.

I was there yesterday and there were loads of Easties.

I do miss the wheelbarrow weekends. They started off at 25 quid plus VAT but went up to 75 plus VAT. But even at 90 quid, anyone like me could get a £500 - a grand's worth if stuff if you work fast and know what to get.

[SiC]

I've noticed fat arse Méganes are starting to thin out on the ground a lot now. In some ways I'm surprised it's taken this long.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

They are surprisingly robust though. A mate of mine traded a 52 plate 1.6i one in last year, had it since 2005 and never been any trouble apart from a couple of keycards.