Service industry

Press, 6 July 1983, Page 27

Service industry

The used automotive parts industry has laboured under an "ugly duckling” image for years. Now, however, with economic recession forcing people to look again at second-hand goods of all descriptions, auto dismantlers are providing a sought-after service for vehicle owners. Statistics show that people are keeping their cars longer and many, are learning to do their own repair work as an economy measure. Dismantlers offer customers quality parts, often with warranties, at prices up to 50 per cent less than their new equivalents. A large proportion of recycled parts are sold to commerical garages and panel-beaters, new and used car dealers and owners of vehicle fleets.

Contrary to the beliefs of

many people, dismantlers have parts for late model cars as well as older vehicles. Damaged vehicles are purchased from insurance companies, allowing the insurers to recover some of their losses and thereby helping to keep down the cost of insurance premiums.

Approximately 2000 cars are in the process of being dismantled in Christchurch at any one time and they range in vintage from 1930 models to 1983 cars. Up to 90 per cent of the parts are capable of being recycled; the unusable hard metal is passed on to scrape metal merchants from where, it to, is recycled. The compacting of car hulks provides considerable revenue for the scrap metal processing industry, at the same time saving on metal im-

ports for the country as a whole. Automotive dismantlers are frequently an important source of parts for rare vehicles, both older models that are no longer in production and newer, more exclusive varieties. Because the association’s members are in radio contact with each other, if one company cannot supply the part required it can be found quickly and conveniently somewhere else in the city.

Dismantlers often sell “assemblies” of parts, replacing an entire mechanism instead of the single faulty component and saving garages time and consumers money on repairs.

The industry also serves a useful function by helping to keep the country’s roads clear of abandoned and disabled vehicles. Both the police and local bodies offer such vehicles for tender and, however old or battered they may be, there