As I understand it, stolen cars are stripped for parts in chop shops for two reasons: (i) parts from a car are easier to conceal and harder to trace than the whole car; and (ii) the car parts are worth more than the whole car.
Point 1 makes sense, but point 2 boggles my mind. How is this possible? Anyone with an understanding of the automobile industry out there?
Sua
IANACarThief, but I believe one issue is the available market. You can strip the parts, clean them up, and sell them as “rebuilt” to normal consumers for retail prices. It’s much harder to sell an entire car, and you probably can’t just sell to joe-consumer since you have to worry about papers an such.
I imagine it depends a lot on the car. If you boost a 6-week old Porsche, you can probably sell it black market for more than the sum of the parts. If you get an '86 Chevy truck, I’d bet the parts are worth about the same as the car even if you could get blue book pricing. Have you ever tried to buy something like a rebuilt transmission for a ten-year-old car?
You know what?
This is a bit of an example of how often we hear something and then take it at face value without evaluating it.
If we believe this, then it would follow that we could start an aftermarket parts business by buying thousands of new cars, taking them apart, and putting the pieces in cardboard boxes.
The truth is that the retail cost of all of the parts in a car is more than that of the original car. However that is because there are packaging, storage, inventory, shipping, and handling costs associated with the parts that are either less or non existant with the car. The car doesn’t need a box. It can be left outside, instead of in a warehouse. Etc., etc, etc.
I am sure the markup on a new Focus is substantially less that that of a fender for a Focus.
I think, as you suspected, the first reason is the more likely. The parts are harder to trace.
However, consider that a car is a single entity, and one that has a high trading volume. You can pick up a working, mid-1980s car for $500.00. Considering all that goes into that car, it should be worth far more than the 500 bucks that was paid for it. The cost is so low because the economics of the day dictate that it is.
While you could strip down this old car for parts and, in theory, sell them, there are a bunch of snags you’d run into. First, the parts in an old beater are likely to be in crappy condition. People won’t buy your “OEM” parts if they suspect they’re used; they’d just as well go to a junkyard and get the parts cheap. Secondly, as stated, you’d have to package them up, and so on and so forth. Sleazy garages can presumably get around this by installing the used parts in the cars of unknowledgeable consumers. Finally, customers would probably expect some sort of warranty, which would end up costing you since your used parts are more likely to break down.
Actually chop shops don’t actually work just like that. Its not that they could say steal a porsche thats worth 70,000 and make more than 70,000 by parting the car out.
Actually you steal a Porsche and sell what you can such as the engine worth 10,000 (Yes Porsche engines are expensive) and then sell other parts of the body for other wrecked Porsches for an expensive but not as expensive as from the factory cost and in the end lets say you made $20,000. 20 grand is far less than 70, however they boosted the car and essentially got it for free. So yeah they only made 20 out of 70 but in reality they made 20,000 dollars profit.
They also, say buy a Porsche(Porsche is just a good example)
taht has been wrecked to the point of utter distruction for 1,000 dollars then make it either use the VIN from that car for the stolen one or repair the wrecked one with the stolen one and viola they have a porsche for $1,000 with a lot of labor which is free when you do it yourself or pay others then turn around and sell as a wrecked porsche for say $15,000 which to people who always try and live beyond their means that don’t mind having a salvaged Porsche because hey its a Porsche and nobody else has to know. These are cars that money is made off of, the 86 Chevy is generally not a target to real boosters. The 86 Chevy probably got grabbed to put someone in the bottom of a river with or someother means of that sort. However alot of domestic musclecars, i.e. Mustangs and Z-28’s have major potential to boosters because of the engines and the constant needs of people that race these cars for parts.
Has anyone ever seen proof of the popular shop-legend that V8 Camaros are stolen so often because V8s are not for sale in Mexico? I’ve heard that story so often I’m beginning to accept it as plausible.
V8s in General, or V8 Camaros aren’t available?
You can get a LOT of cars/trucks in Mexico with V8 engines. The Suburban comes to mind immediately, for example.
Hmmm… don’t know, but that sounds out there.
Camaro was top o’ the list of most-stolen cars back when I had one (coincidence). The reason I heard was that there were a lot of them on the road and the parts were interchangeable with many other GM models as well. That made them an easy target with a good after-market for parts.
Well I do know that they did have fox-bodied 5.0 mustangs, not only did the V8 come in the mustangs in Mexico the blocks were actually stronger than the American blocks during that era (The fox-bodied stangs I mean).
Sua, your question was discussed extensively in this thread.