# Someone Said "Car Parts"?



## Anonymous (Sep 23, 2007)

Hi everyone, 

I'm new here and very greatful for all the wonderful information! I am just getting started and can't wait for the fun to begin.

When I was trying to research all the various places to find scrap to play with, I found an article that mentioned something about certain auto parts containing gold and precious metals. Not only the emblems and platings on body parts, but I think catalytic converters and some kinds of wirings and bushings, maybe even the engines's computer. (Sorry, I don't speak "car" very well! :wink: )

But I have a friend who salvages and recycles tons of cars and was wondering if he should be on the look-out for parts for me. Thoughts?

Thanks for the help!


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## aflacglobal (Sep 23, 2007)

boutique owner ? Now that's got to be interesting. Welcome to the forum.

We have had that question ask several times here. Not quiet sure if we really have a list yet. I know of the catalytic converters, ox sensors, the sparkplugs are said to contain some platinum, some of the engine sensors are said to also. Might be a little in the computer boards, I'm not quiet sure. Propably wouldn't be a lot. The catalic converters are the hot high dollar item today.

If i'm not mistaken some go for 20-30 dollars as scrap value :?: 
Anybody got the line on that one :?:


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## Never_Evil (Sep 23, 2007)

There is also gold in the airbag sensors and deployment circuits. A full size catalytic converter from like a Toyota (highest value of Pt) is going for about $60 in the scrappers, Preconverters are about $15 (all yards are different and change value weekly so call ahead of time), but still worth it if you can harvest out the pt and other pgm's and then recycle the steel bodies for scrap. You can also grab the copper wiring which is about a buck fifty a pound or 75 cents if you leave the coating on. Aluminum from top side engine parts such as intakes and possibly heads. The rest of the car is just dead weight. IMO is a PITA to deal with cars unless you get to pick and choose your parts at someone elses place. 

Good luck


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## lazersteve (Sep 23, 2007)

Welcome to the Forum,

GSP has posted a list which includes automotive scrap here:

Type of PM Scrap

Also my website has a PGM document taken from a post originally by AgAuRhPt as a table from a book he owns. I converted his pictures of the pages into tablular pdfs.

Steve


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## jimdoc (Sep 23, 2007)

Here is the best site for converter info;

Catmax converter guide;
http://www.catmax.net/gallery.php

Catmax pricing table;
http://www.catmax.net/pricing.php


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## Anonymous (Sep 23, 2007)

Basically what I have is a giant junk yard as a personal playground. I have an open invitation to the playground as long as I bring my own tools. He takes a few cars a week to the crusher and wanted to know if I could use any of the stuff. He only gets between $30 & $70 for a whole car, so we wanted to see if we could do better. :lol: 

What are catalytic converters made of? When they are sold for scrap, are they desired for the value of their metal, or are they re-built and sold to parts stores? When sold, should they be taken to a scrap refinery/recycle center, or to a scap auto parts store (like the junk yard)?


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## blueduck (Sep 24, 2007)

the cats are best cut apart and then sell the cans to the metal yard and either recover the PGM's from the monolith or beads or save to contaiers to then sell in quantity to a recycler of PGM's. 

The oxygen sensor has Pt and maybe Pd but no Rt, and the connector end is gold plated though some are Pt plated.

From all I can gather [and i started out wanting to go for the PGM's from cats] some of the newer cats have as much as 5 grams of Pt inside when new, according to some folks this will dwindle over time and mileage, however if you dont get the sulfides off no acd will get to the precious metals and you cannot recover what you cannot get to..... burning seems to the way to get rid of the sulfides [read rotten egg smell so be aware of the neighbors complaining that you are trying to poison them if you burn near anyone] about an hour at 1100 degrees will rid you all the nasties and might be hot enough to keep down the bad smell, though I have not burnt any here in Central Idaho on the rez..... 

Bosch sparkplugs have Pt in them on the electrode, the older the plug the more likely it has a good coating..... try powersaw shops, volkswagon shops, and airports for those high dollar plugs taken out of service.

Of course you can always find copper in the starter and alternator but its a bugger to get it out without chunks flying everywhere using a BFH, and the aluminum housing is salable as well..... some motors have AL heads that can be recovered..... My dad-in-law, est his soul, used to take foreign engines and use a BFH to break them down and toss them in his foundry to pour whatever he was needing in green sand casting...... A person just has to think outside the rectangle sometimes.

William


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## Ian_B (Sep 25, 2007)

a playground eh... Car batteries around my parts go for $3 a peice at the scrap yard. 1 hundred cars x $3 = beer money for a couple months


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## blueduck (Sep 25, 2007)

Ian_B said:


> a playground eh... Car batteries around my parts go for $3 a peice at the scrap yard. 1 hundred cars x $3 = beer money for a couple months



but lead has risen to about $3000 per tonne or close at least from what i have been reading... making 30 pounds of lead in a battery a wee bit more than $3 plus the sulfuric acid inside is worth saving too for using in scrap metal recovery..... why buy something if you can salvage it????

In another thread we also discussed that headlights may have some Rh in the reflective material, however not all of them do and the amount maight take a huge pile of lights to be salvaged afore you get enough to count..... even at $6000 per ozt or $193.00 per gram give or take minus fees..... but it makes it tempting to pile a few up and figure out a test for them......

William


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## Ian_B (Sep 30, 2007)

Christmas is coming and china needs the lead for the toys so ofcourse its skyrocketing 

I suppose if you want to get right into it. Starters, see if anybody around your parts are willing to buy them off of you for the housings. I recall having to buy a new starter a year ago and I was able to get a $65 rebate if I gave them the old one.

Alternaters if your willing to take the time to take them apart the housings are cast aluminum and theirs a fair amount of copper inside if you want to go to the effort of unwinding them.

This is ofcourse if the fellow who owns the yard doesn't do this.


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## scrapman1077 (Nov 5, 2007)

A small cat from a nissan I sold two weeks ago was $100.


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## aflacglobal (Nov 5, 2007)

Did you sell just this one ? I mean do you do it on a regular basis ?
Did you sell it to a scrap yard or ?


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## Never_Evil (Nov 6, 2007)

Aflac

I this is a type of person that avertises "I buy junk cars" They cut the cats out of them separate any aluminum and copper they can, the roll the body to a scrap yard for recycling. Even if you spend $100 on a car, you can get about 200 for just the body, about 40 for copper and maybe another 40 for aluminum depending on engine type. They then either sell the cats on ebay which can fetch the 100 price or turn them into the scrap yards for about 50 +/- the size of the cat.


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## Horst (Nov 6, 2007)

you would be surprised, the local scrap yards are taking any cat any size for $5. I have sold two from one of my cars for $237 when it died (and they paid some hefty shipping fee's too!) 

You actually can pull ~$500 from a car like mine, then drag the carcass to a scrap yard for another 100-200. i would suspect maybe 200-300 from an econo box car total though. It just ends up being a hell of a waste of time normally, having to stop every five minutes to speak to the officer your neighbor calls over because your using an angle grinder for the 'fine detail' separation of parts


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## loco (Nov 6, 2007)

I see you mention toyota's having best platinum content. I though I saw someone somewhere say one of the BMW converters fetched more than any other? just courious.


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## loco (Nov 6, 2007)

I see you mention toyota's having best platinum content. I though I saw someone somewhere say one of the BMW converters fetched more than any other? just courious.


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## Horst (Nov 7, 2007)

Well I am well into the research stage. Here is what I have found recyclers/refinery's willing to pay for each cat broken down by value to weight ratio. One individual with generous prices told me he made a clean 30% off all converters, so the prices I have listed you might find PGMs worth 50%-100% more (or maybe more?) then others will pay you for them. Of course part of this is for chemicals, manpower, etc but its a little unjustly high if you ask me

Also note the majority of weight seems to be the casing, when removed your going to get a much lighter product - so dont get your hopes too high

The 'Exotic' biscuit type converter - I have no idea what this is, told they can be found on select Toyota's. Somebody share some information please
$9-17 lb

'Foreign' converters (Nissan/Infiniti, BMW, VW, etc). All places break it down into small/large, regardless the honeycomb contents seem similar and their prices break to be about equal pound for pound of material. These are common, and probably are the cats that should be targeted for a high yield and high availability
$6-9 lb

GM - easy enough to find. It is however hard to purchase these, I dont know why but somebody told some amateurs such as ourselves they were worth an awful lot, and thus have been being targeted from junkyards
$4-7 lb

Chrysler/Jeep - off any Chrysler/Jeep
$3-7 lb

Domestic - think Ford. Personally this surprises me, Fords vehicles are usually pretty low on regulated emissions - and the only thing that can explain that is a cat or an efficient engine 
$3-4 lb

Import Pre Cats - Any European or Japanese pre-converters. The problem here is that the casing is usually VERY heavy in comparison for the yield of monolith. Remember prices are for the monolith material only, so this may seem a little high to you guys who look at value of the entire unit
$3-4 lb 

Domestic Pre Cats - actually might cost more in cutting wheels for an angle grinder then you can make in profit, I dont know
$1-3 lb 


Here are some other things to consider

Diesel Converters - most people think its a dumb idea, I agree! The prices reflects how useful these really are
$1 lb

Extraction plants low ball the hell out of you for precats, most at a ratio of 3 precats is worth 1 regular cat

There is something called 'metal core' looks like a hell of a problem to me. I would avoid them like the plague, it would be prohibitive just by the amount of leach you use to break it down and have so many base metals floating around... 

After Market - worthless crap! Probably worth less then a 20 year old precat. I would only buy if it was 1/4 or 1/5 the price of a stock converter. Lets face it our time is worth something, and our materials are too. No sense in extracting something that contains almost nothing of value

Wire converters (also called 'spiral' converters). Depending on what the wire is made of it could be hell to take apart. Very similiar to a metal core converter, and apparently extraction plants agree and tend to pay 1/2 the price you would expect for it. We dont have massive machines to break apart and cook converters, so its probably less economical for one of us hobbyists 

A four door luxury sedan or a V8 sports car is your friend. Anything with a strong engine (especially an older strong engine) will be needing some serious catalysts to pass emissions. Also it was 93 or 94 some emission regulations came into effect that forced the majority of company's to use larger amounts of catalyst (rather then scrap all the cars they worked to design for years)... so that means if you can find cars that are 94-97 your in business. Plenty of nations had plenty of laws, check into them and you can easily pinpoint the most profitable years of cars to pick at. (with little error, efficiency has been slow to improve in engines)

Some PGMs are lost over time, however the majority of all failures in a catalytic converter is cause by something called catalyst poisoning, and I would guess maybe 95% of the time is because there is a coating of LEAD on the honeycomb (all this talk about carbon build up on converters, I dont know. I can tell you I tore apart an awesome converter from an older engine and it had almost NO carbon build up at all). The whole idea of 'cooking' Cats is insane in almost all cases, so many toxins are released, just read up on what is found in Catalytic converters OTHER then PGM's. The process of cooking them can be replaced by a chemical leach, I called two plants in Korea and thats what they were required to do - and it saved them money. I asked about the leach but neither wanted to (or could understand the question) explain it to me. Anyways unless you want to smell rotten eggs and wonderful carcinogens that your mask wont protect you from (or your neighbors, pets, or the environment, and the EPA would love that) you need to look into a better system then 'cooking'

This took me all of three weeks and 30 some odd phone calls. Like I said, I wouldn't be surprised to see maybe a 50%-100% value increase in all of the listed things if you do it yourself (and I didn't calculate shipping charges, so add a buck or two to everything!) and manage similar efficiency's in extraction and refining. This is so disjointed and such, I really need sleep but figured I would post this and see how it goes - I have more theoretical experience then hands on experience so those of you in the business im sure can tear some of this apart, and please do so. If this is of any value I will repost it in a more reader friendly form, along with some of the 10 pages of notes I have from those phone calls (related to their processes, not prices)


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## aflacglobal (Nov 7, 2007)

http://www.catmax.net/pricing.php


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## Horst (Nov 7, 2007)

I have seen catmax before, has anybody here actually sent in converters to them? I dont know if a single converter can contain a value of 225 (or even large foreigns having 157 each) and they pay for somebody's time and gas to pick it up 250 miles away, break them down, pay for the entire process and still make a profit. If I lived in that town I could make a living finding a few converters here and there - hell I might as well load up my truck with 'large foreign' converters and drive there myself. If they are indeed fair prices - hell yea this is the way to be making money and we are all on top of a gold mine most people know nothing about


anyways something on one of the process I have been looking into (and plant to follow - almost no waste at all, just a little base metal sludge any scrap yard wouldn't be upset taking and throwing into a furnace) 
In my notes I have a basic idea of how one of the Korean plants is processing - they bypass the entire 'cooking' process and just leave converters in 500 gal leach funnels, they precipitate the PGM's and re-use their leach, running the PGMs through resin colums which sorts them into palladium, platinum, rhodium - and then just evaporate the rest of the fluids to make sure they didn't miss anything (throw it back into the leach). The only thing they pay people to do is yank out the monolith, the rest of the system is on a timer. After enough batches have been done (500 converters - they only toss in 1 converter for 5 gal of leach per process) they then have to empty the leach tanks of all monolith, and add something to get the resin columns to precipitate their select PGM - thus starting the process over. Seems awfully close to some of the systems I have seen for sale - the individual I ended up calling was knowledgeable about the process but again couldnt hint at the leachs or what he used to precipitate, or whats in their resin columns (probably because the only guy that knows that is the middle man, and thats how he puts meat on the table)


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## jimmy759 (Nov 12, 2007)

well where i live the thieves come out at night and are tageting gmc trucks and alot of other trucks too and cutting out the converters in the night with torches.

apparently fetching about 60-85 a pop


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## kevin68311 (Nov 29, 2007)

I work in a salvage yard and have found gold in the ECMs on cars and where the airbags plug in to the wiring harness.The ECM's have gold plated pins where they connect.Hope this helps.


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