Faithful to your scrap yard?

[rambo_k9]

Just checking to see how many of you are faithful to your scrap yard or do you shop around to different yards? How far do you drive to your closest yard and how
far are you willing to drive?
My local yard is about 12 miles away but I think their prices suck. They are good guys though. I'm thinking about venturing to a new yard but its in
Camden NJ. Ain't NOTHING good going on in Camden. So is it worth it for the extra miles? What say you?

[hobo finds]

Closest yard by me is 5 miles away but they suck. Low prices small yard. The place i normaly go to is 11 miles away with 2 other yards close by. I go to the same yard as I know what they will take and how close they will inspect the items turned in less hassles that way.

[Dr. Cadmium]

I would call and make sure that the prices in Camden are that much better. Then you have to consider the extra time, gas and most importantly the increased risk.

It pays to shop around. Different yards:

1) Pay different prices.

2) Buy different materials.

3) Classify materials differently.

4) Have different standards for what constitues "clean" material.

5) Are run by different people.

The last one is worth more consideration than you think. If you bring in more material to one particular yard and are friendly with the owner, you can get useful information out of them, as well as better deals when selling and buying with them.

[theirrationalist]

I am faithful To my scrap yard. I shopped around about 4 years back, but then I found a wonderful scrap yard. Its about 15 miles away from my house, but totally worth it. I have a hydraulic trailor. Because of their set up, I can weigh my trailer, dump it, weigh out, and get payed in less than 10 minutes. They always have enough people working, and they pay very reasonably. There are some prices they are a bit stingy in, but what they lack in prices, they make up by accepting many grades of metal as high grades. I think a key to finding a great yard is finding a area where there is competition. The more scrap yards around, the more competition between yards, hence higher prices for their loyal customers. Its all about finding a good fit.

[Verbane]

I am faithful to my yard, but it helps to look at the local operations to understand why. Saturday hours are a big plus. I have 3 options within 2 miles of work, 18 miles from home.

One is a corporate type with the best prices in town, but with all the corporate trucks on and off the scale, a steel run will take an hour or quite often more. Plan for at least an hour for a non-ferrous run. Employee turnover is so high, I had never worked with the same person more than a couple times.Plan to be treated as a criminal in the payment office. NOT OPEN SATURDAY. I have to lose time at work, or use vacation time to scrap here.

Two is a regional company that focuses on beverage cans, but also takes non-ferrous metals. They pay the best price on UBC, but their non-ferrous prices are typically 5-7 cents below the corporate guys. Five minutes for a load of cans. Open 8-3 on Saturday.

Three is a local family owned/run operation. Prices are typically 1-3 cents lower than the corporate yard for non-ferrous, but prices match for ferrous metal. I can drop and have payment within 15 minutes, fast enough to do a run during my lunch break. Open Saturday 9-12. This is my yard, Where everybody knows my name, and their always glad I came...

[fire medic 160]

I used to to go to a scrap yard 7 miles from my house which was the only one close. I eventually got sick of the very poor attitudes of the employees, the owner was an arrogent jerk, and they bought a very small varitey of metal. When my friend and me brung a rather large load of various grades of copper and aluminum, we was about to get completly diffrent prices from what we was quoted 15 minutes earlier on the phone by the manager, (yes we knew prices can change instantly but we asked if the prices had changed today and was told no). Although trying to tell the guy what we was told earlier he said he never "heard of such a stupid thing". Needless to say he said all the copper we had was number 2. We had clean and unclean copper 1 and 2 along with sheet copper. Told the guy we was leaving and going to a scrap yard nearly 20 miles away. He told us that "piece of s*** truck won't make it". Make it it did multiple more times it also did. All they got on that load was 3 sacs of cans. The further scrap yard graded our copper right and gave us even higher prices on everything. Never went back to the first place and never will.

[theirrationalist]

Some people can't be trusted. And scrap yards usually have a lot of those people. When I was starting out, I had brought a giant truck load full of aluminum to, at the time, my local yard. After I unloaded and they brought it all to the back, they tried telling me I had brought them steel. I had to actually threaten to call the police before they would even check with a magnet. The thing is I was just starting out and they knew that; They were trying to take advantage of someone who was ignorant. It wouldn't surprise me if yards are making tens of thousands of dollars more a year by simply doing that type of thing.

[Heartkill]

Here in GA I've recently found a great yard after being completely fed up with the small local one, but it's 30 miles away. It's worth the drive for me to take my non-ferrous there since they pay the highest, grade the best and are open on Saturday's until noon.

For steel runs there is a nice one that's on the way to work, about 10 miles away. They always get my business. Scale is easy to access, workers hand unload so my truck doesn't get tore up by idiot magnet operators, and their pretty relaxed on what they'll take in as light steel.

[mightyhunter]

I go to the same yard over and over, good folk's to deal with and fairly quick on getting in and out even when there are alot of 18 wheelers waiting to weigh out, they flag the smaller trucks in first and even give me an extra 5% on payout for being a "valued customer". Got a bigger yard about 10 miles further down the road but the payout is a bit less and the people there really have a bad attitude toward customers because your not bringing in 10 tons of #1 at a time