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Show The Park Record C-6 Thinking of Buying or Selling? Call Your Home Team! TIMBERED TREASURE IN PINEBROOK • $685,000 TERRY &LANNIE SCOPES. ! Your Home Team! Terry's direct 435-647-3206 • cell 435-640-1591 Lannie's direct 435-647-3228 • cell 435-640-0741 ILSS'RIilD terry@jessreidrealestate.com • lannie@jessreidrealestate.com www.parkrecord.com jvmw.parkrecord.com www.parkrecord.com Wed/Thurs/Fri, September 15-17, 2004 junkyards: salvaging more than parts By JACK COX MedinNews Group Wire Some arrive crushed nnd broken, others seemingly intact. Drained of vital fluids and identified hy numbers scrawled on iheir flanks, they are laid out in neat rows to be ripped apart by scavengers until only bare carcasses remain. An open-air morgue'.' Yes, if you think of an auto salvage yard purely in terms of the mechanical corpses it contains. But at a self-service lot - or "U-pull-il." in industry parlance - body parts aren't ihe only things available. What's really being sold, although few of the mostly male customers will admit it. are feelings - of camaraderie, of selfreliance, of the satisfaction o[ finding a bargain, fixing a problem, fulfilling a quest. "If you know what fits your car, you can have a blast." says John Palmer, 29, a regular at Pull-n-Save in Aurora. Colo. , an Aurora yard regarded as the most user-friendly For car owners who can handle a wrench, and even many who can't, such junkyards are fields of dreams. Dreams of the replacement parts they hope to nab for old Ford sedans and Chevy pickups, dreams oi the wrecked BMWs or Mercedes they would rebuild if they only had the lime and expertise, dreams of the trips they would take, the passengers (hey would bring along. "This is a guy thing, bigtime." says Phil Tolley. Pull-nSave's general manager, scanning the 1,000 or so vehicles in his ever-changing inventory, "It's not for everybody, but §• Performance Teams • Ballroom this is a great way to go if you can. People come to realize that if somebody put a car together, you con take it apart and fix it yourself." Like traditional junkyards, Pull-n-Save and other self-service operations acquire wrecked and nonrmining vehicles from auction houses, low-truck drivers, insurers and private individuals. But by inviting customers to bring their own tools and do their own dismantling, the Upull-it kits are able lo cut the prices of reusable parts to rockbottom levels - an average of 80 percent lower than dealer retail and 50 percent less than fullservice salvage yards. "Tires, batteries. CV axles, door glass - the wear-out items go fast." says Tolley. an engineer and hot-rod enthusiast who has run Pull-n-Savc since it opened in 199.S. "First thing in the morning, people will come in and say, 'I've gotla have a battery lo get lo work.' Our customer doesn't drive an Escalade. He's got a '90 Pontiac." On this day, rural Adams County resident Jay Kopecky has come for a windshield -- not for his own car, but for his mail carrier. "She got a rock through her windshield, and I gol her a replacement for $34. versus the $192 it would have cost new." he says, his greasy hands bespeaking his pleasure at getting such a deal. Another regular. Milt Mitlelstedt. a retired electronics technician, has refurbished several older vehicles with Pull-nSavc parts. Lyrical • Tumbling PARK CITY DANCE "For the consumer, it's a godsend," lie says. "My son's 1996 Chevrolet Caprice needed replacement tires, which would probably cost $300 new. I found four good wheels and tires, already mounted and balanced, for $68 out the door." The Automotive Recycle rs Association says salvage yards process about 14 million cars, trucks and vans each year, making motor vehicles the most frequently recycled product in America. "It's a big business, with $8 billion to $10 billion in annual sales," says George Eliades, executive vice president of the Fairfax. Va.-based trade group. "The (yards) save raw materials, they save landfill space, and they save money for consumers by pulling parts in the market that are less costly." On weekends. Pull-n-Save is as busy as a Wal-Mart on the day before school starts. Its parking lot is usually full by midmorning with some customers pulling in from as far away as Wyoming, Kansas or Nebraska. In the yard, the rows of vehicles - arranged in sections labeled Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and Imports - are alive wilh prospectors. From beneath hoods and wheel wells can be heard the squeak of bolts being loosened. t he cl a n k of bu m pc rs be i u g dropped, the ""ouch" of knuckles being scraped. Not all customers are amateurs. Professional mechanic Manuel Quezada goes to Pull-nSave for hard-to-find parts for older cars. "Some people just want everything brand-new, but when they want to save money, they ask you to pick it up at the junkyard," he says while retrieving the transfer case from beneath a battered '91 Daihatsu Rocky. Low prices aren't the only reason for Pull-n-Save's popularity. Visitors also like it because its concrete-paved yard is cleaner than most; it supplies wheelbarrows, heavy-duty carts and chain hoists at no extra charge beyond a standard $1 admission fee; and it offers a hand-washing station and burrito vendor. In addition, Tolley sometimes stages special events to "make it a fun place to be." In May, an annual "pull-athon" offers patrons the junkyard equivalent of an all-youcan- eat buffet: "all the parts you can carry 10 feet -for $30." At this year's pull-a-thon, one man managed to stagger the requisite distance with two Subaru engines dangling from the ends of a drive shaft slung over his shoulders. The yard's biggest drawing cards, though, are probably its computerized parts-matching service (which can tell if. say, a grille from an '87 Ford Ranger will fit an "87 Bronco) and its 30day, no-quest ions-asked return policy. Pull-n-Savc can't tell a customer if it has a particular vehicle in slock - much less a certain part - but its inventory turns over quickly, with roughly 1,000 vehicles coming in to be stripped and another 1,000 being crushed for scrap each month. "If you don't find it this week," says Kopecky, "you'll find it next week." Your Real EstateTeCHTl... ACADEMY OF PERFORMING ARTS Tom Ward Mark Sanders 800-647-3727 sales@skiproperty.com Tom &. 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