kind of off topic,and kind of a weird topic..ive been thinking of different ways to take my profession,and one of the things i was thinking of is a motorcycle salvage yard..i was just wondering if anyone had any idea on how to get it started,get insurance write offs,laws,and so on..sorry if this is off topic,but i believe there are a couple junkyard owners on here?
My guess is that the EPA and the Zoning Board of where ever you are won't let you do it. Save your money and buy an existing yard.
with the amount of money the junkyards make off each car, it is a good business, as long as you have the space tp aka zibo
the thing is,that there are no existing cycle salvage yards around here..i do know of one about 100 miles from here that closed many years back,but im not sure if anythign is still there.. of course it is just an idea..unfortunatly i cant find any info on it.i did find some pdf files on recycling oils and such.that is about it
first thing is too look into why the one 100 miles away closed. next is find out if you can have a yard in your area (epa limits what you can do) 3 look at what e-bay has done to the whole used parts market ( you can take a bike and strip it and sell for 2 times the price and not have to pay any business taxes) you can sell bike parts and or car parts all day long on e-bay with out any over head or sales tax bs in your spare time while colecting your day job pay and benifits.
Get a decent size piece of Property and put up a large steel building. If you have a few friends help (And a Cherry Picker / Man lift) A steel building can go up in a weekend or two. There is an outfit in FL that sells them from 24x24 to 50x110 ($15,000). Keep it all inside and avoid the fuss. There are "Yards" in ATL that look like any other commercial building. Step inside and there are pallet racks to the cieling from end to end. They bring the cars in, strip them, "File" the parts, and haul off the rest. With Bikes...... Easier, faster, takes up less space. Something to consider.
Your only choice is going to be to buy an existing yard. Scince Ladybird Johnson turned everbody in government into tree huggers, and the EPA got to be unstopable gods, most salvage yards are grandfathered in and new ones are next to impossible. My uncle owns a yard in the Western NY area and eveything depends on the price of steel nowadays. We won't even talk about zoning boards, EPA regs and insurance! Best bet is to talk to a current owner to get the scoop.-MIKE
A good frend of mine and his family run a couple of yards locally. You cannot open a new yard in the city and the authorities in the entire area have been going after yards for ground water pollution as well as runoff into nearby bodies of water. Many yards have closed (the insane price of real estate here is another reason) The biggest loss was Martinez Auto Dismantlers in Avon. They had an enormous piece of property and had been in business since at least the 1940's. They had so much great stuff. They also were located along marshland on the Carquinez Strait and had a huge undergound growing plume of pollution moving toward the water. They had the choice of correcting it. Mega$$$$ or closing. They stayed open as long as possibe but finally threw in the towel. My friend occassionally bids on city auctions buying surplus crap and towaways. Every so often there will be a lot load of bikes. Usaually he is the only bidder and can sometimes get a trailer load of them in varying condition for the bid opening which in some cases is $20.Enough to cover fees and paperwork. Never know what will turn up Check the zoning laws. Some places are more recptive to te idea. The big expense will be runoff containment as wel as prevetion of anything entering the water table.
if you want the real horror story pm nobux ,he has a running yard ,and the stuff they had to go through ,it can be done,
last i knew, there were 2 mc. junkyards here in michigan...although it's been a few years...one is in holt...just outside of lansing, and the other one is up in mt. pleasant....don't really remember the names of them. but you may want to check into those. i picked up some old vespa and lambretta scooters at those places some years back.
our yard has been open since 1964, gets harder to stay open every year. i would not advise anyone to start a yard these days. with cheap japper parts and the epa and city shit it's a nightmare to stay open. but i think a cycle yard would be a pretty good venture. as long as you kept everything inside and racked with no outside storage to keep the epa away. with adversting and e-bay i bet it would work and you would have way less competition with bikes.
Go the e-bay way. I was in the parts yard business till two years ago;the EPA and the Florida DEP are still working on my butt;I've spent$85k so far and only eat because I became a metals recycling yard. Work out of a small building,dismantle and scrap each unit and don't sell or give ANYTHING to anyone local. No buddies hanging around and you can build a decent business. Clutter and traffic upset people and lead to complaints.Self employment is great,but every customer is your boss and if you don't function well in the work place,you won't do well on your own.
thanks for the info guys..it was all good..the building thing sounds good.keep everything in there..there is this place in phoenix i used to go to quite a bit,that would take all the best parts and keep it all inside (body work,kicker pedals,wheels and so on)..but they still had alot of bikes and stuff outside..i loved going to that place..t they had a row of fixer upper bikes,and fenced in section of insurance write off harleys,and lots of bare frames with some bikes that still had usuable parts.. the place was always very busy everytime i went in there,and it was huge..i dont care about size..a small place is always good too. so going to public city auctions to for bikes is a good idea it sounds like..but how do you get the insurance write off stuff?
Go to Ebay item no. 7501713662 for the secrets of starting one. Or item no. 4365774810 for the whole deal.
Things depend on what state you're in but breakers are not kindly thought of by DEP these days. You might want to consider finding an old grandfathered yard. They are normally fairly cheap because of contamination. They can't be used for any kind of development around here.
REV 616, The problem is you live in Michigan. That used to be an advantage untill about 1990. Then the townships adopted a kind of "universal" Zoning rules. Now you will not be able to get a permit for a "Salvage" operation. Any kind of building will also need a permit. As most rural lands are now Zoned Agricultural-Residential. You would only be able to erect a building that was for Agricultural use on sizeable acreage. Even then it takes a review board and it's hassles. If you build without permit. You will be fined for every DAY that it is up. Then charged as a criminal offense (misdemeanor) They will get a court order and remove it (and everything on the property) at your expense. The tree huggers/yuppies have got the zoning thing down to their own little "perfect world" and that doesn't include bone yards. No grandfather clauses and very hard to fight. My ex is trying to fight them now. Very costly, Everybody considers your stuff "Junk". He has been on his acreage for over twenty years. In this township you can't even have a tractor on your rural property if you don't actively farm the land ($5000.00 min. yearly income). ANY vehicles on rural property must be "road legal" liscenced and moved every ninety days. You cannot store "auto parts, building materials, farm equipment etc ( the list includes about anything you can think of). outside (cannot be covered or fenced) must be housed in a "legal" building. Welcome to the USA a "free" country!!!!
Damn! Where do you live Nasty? We have a family "farm" that has not been a formal "farm" for 8-10 years. Lots of "stuff" there & no one ever hassles us. We're kind of out in the country, but on a paved road...
Northwestern Oakland county. Dirt two track road. Twenty years ago there were only three houses on the road. But the Yuppies from Bloomfield Hills "discovered" this quaint "Up North" area and started sub dividing/building 1/2 million dollar and up homes.
Ahhh that's the difference, I too am in Perfect Oakland, different laws from say kalamazoo or even up in the thumb, or maybe less soccer mom's to bitch about peoples stuff. There is another bike yard in Yale, north of Lapeer, I went there about 5 years ago, he had a TON of nice stuff. IMO just use ebay and keep the shit hidden, I have had 7 bikes and a 3 wheeler at one time at my place, all inside and unseen. If they are nice fix em sell em, if not part em out and sell em. Bikes are eaiser that cars to part out and store, I'd just do it on the side, wait I already am . I will have to look into the auction thing $20.00 a bike is a steal...
Rand, that's very funny... and probally hits home with many of us! I would think you need to be very patient... Boneyards can be a very good return on investment over time. It's not typically a quick return on invenstment. I think it would be a big mistake to think you could be liquid in a less than two-three years. Also, I would get a very good epa lawyer. My guess is you would want to at least twice remove yourself from ownership in the land. For example, you would buy the land, sell to another company on contract who in turn would lease the land to the salvage yard. People can get put into jail over epa crap.
Is there any web site besides ebay where you can sell your own junk parts without having to pay a big subscription?
Best thing I ever saw is the Honda car parts specialty place in Herkimer NY. They bought an old warehouse or factory of some sort at the tax auction, for cheap. It had sat empty so long it literally had trees and things growing in the gravel on the roof of the place. But it had a big freight elevator in it. So they bricked up most of the windows on the lower floors, the uppers are just covered in fiberglass or something cheap, and it is loaded to the top (about 7 floors) with old Hondas. You buy stuff at a counter on the first floor, and there is a row of various vehicles out front for sale. It puts a building back on the tax rolls, the "salvage" operation is all indoors, to take care of waste oil you just install a furnace that burns it, about the only expenses are going to be a salvage operator liscense (varys by state and township), tire disposal, and anti-freeze disposal (I'd sell the good stuff used to people for cheap now that the stuff is $10 a gallon). I would think the same thing would work for motorcycles, except you could do it in just about any smaller old building. There was a rural elementary school, 4 floors, maybe 6 rooms a floor, that went for taxes about 5 years ago for $1,000 - look for something like that. The great thing about cycles is you can be in the middle of nowhere and people will come to you. I've seen dealerships where they were the only real business for 10 miles -
Ya know....you wouldn't HAVE to stick with just bikes. There's a whole lot of people with 4-wheelers these days, too. The yuppies really do like thier toys. Roger
I too am in MI, but Monroe Cty. Very rural/agricultural. I needed NO PERMIT for my "pole barn" which is an 8' 30X40 garage. As long as it was not taller than the house, no big deal. Good 1st step if ya wanna do that. Carter Lumber has awesome deals on barn/garage packages. If you want to be "legal" pick and choose the depatments you deal with on the gov't level of things. You'll need a class C or D dealer's license (salvage) and that gets you into the salvage "pools" scattered through out the state. There's one on US27 heading out of St Johns. Get friendly with an insurance agent and ask silly questions. Amazing what some innocent querries can get you especially from women in the office. The indoor deal is probably the best advice you're getting here. As far as EPA bullshit just dispose of oils and such properly and keep records. It's that easy. Use approved containers for left over gasoline and pump it into your trucks. If you "pick your spots" and say ONLY WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY, it might just be easier than you think. Don't forget snowmobiles. Mich has the largest amount of sled registrations in the US and second only to Ontario. Something like 350,000. Ever price a used sled motor? There's lots of info packets available at the Sec of State, and you should be able to weasle around some Mich.gov sites as well. Good luck man I hope it works for you.
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