# Where do all the cars go?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 13, 2017, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202 "2017-09-13T02:18:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/1 "2017-09-13T02:18:26Z")
From this [site](https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_23.html_mfd) we find that roughly 55 million cars are manufactured each year.
Where do they all go, in general? I can’t imagine ALL of them end up in accidents, but what cause of attrition do cars succumb to? You no longer see flatbeds and flatbeds of squished cars, nor do you see them much in desert ravines next to the highways (like you used to before we got so Eco Friendly.)
If the average human dies from heart disease, what does the average Car die from?
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/2 "2017-09-13T02:50:01Z")
There are a lot of people in places like China and India who are buying their first car.
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### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/3 "2017-09-13T02:51:59Z")
I just junked a 1998 Volvo, I’m guessing they’ll strip it for parts. Over 200K miles on it and the engine and trans were in perfect working condition. Volvo body panels don’t really rust so the body could have been repainted and look fine. It was every damn thing else on the car. At least every 3 months something would need repair, a new heater core, or a new radiator, or a complete overhaul of the brakes, or the air conditioning would go out, plus the seats were worn out, the radio was shit, all the plastic in the interior was cracking, etc. If I had the patience/time I could have had it restored or just kept driving the car another 10 years but I just got tired of taking it to the shop and driving a car that looked 20 years old.
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### Author:  [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/4 "2017-09-13T02:52:26Z")
That doesn’t seem to account for the millions and millions (and millions) that are made every year.
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### Author:  [@48Willys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/48Willys)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/5 "2017-09-13T03:03:19Z")
I see rail car loads of crushed autos heading east. IDK where they are headed to, but they are going somewhere to be melted down.
One local scrap yard has a very large shredding machine. They shred the cars & put the small pieces into gondola cars. These pieces are shipped via UPRR. Again, IDK where. Heck, the scrap may be being shipped to China for all I know.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/6 "2017-09-13T03:06:10Z")
[Here’s](http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a1481/4213384/) a _Popular Mechanics_ article from 2009.
> [@](#):
>
> Fed by annual new-car sales that hover around 17 million, the U.S. automotive recycling industry reclaims some 750 million pounds of scrap each and every month. Much of that scrap – bits of steel and copper and aluminum and rubber – travels through a series of crushing, shredding, sorting and smelting facilities in southern Michigan that salvage almost every usable material in a vehicle.
.
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### Author:  [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/7 "2017-09-13T03:06:18Z")
The ultimate fate of nearly every car in the US ( and most of the developed world) is to become shredded scrap. Fist-size chunks of steel, which are then sold to mini-mills to be made into new steel.
(Also some copper and aluminum, also ultimately remelted, and shredder fluff -the non-metallic remainders of the cars- often used as daily cover in landfills.
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### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/8 "2017-09-13T03:07:54Z")
You asked what the average car dies from. My point is that in a lot of cases the car isn’t necessarily non-functional, it’s just more of a burden than the owner cares to deal with.
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/9 "2017-09-13T03:16:52Z")
> [@zoid](#):
>
> You asked what the average car dies from. My point is that in a lot of cases the car isn’t necessarily non-functional, it’s just more of a burden than the owner cares to deal with.
At which point, the car is “junked”, which usually means that a salvage yard buys it, and sells, one way or another, any usable parts and then recycles the rest.
Cars that are “donated to charity” are usually parted out and the money from the sale of said parts then goes to that charity. The National Kidney Foundation has been doing this for many years; my local public radio station does this too.
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### Author:  [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/10 "2017-09-13T03:29:51Z")
Probably as a trade at a dealership then?
Dad traded in a 1986 Lincoln Towncar in 1992, the car didn’t even get a chance to sit on the lot before it was driven south to Mexico (from Denver)…I want to think they put a stop to that. I remember caravans of old cars, towing old cars south, 6-8 cars at a time.
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### Author:  [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/race_to_the_bottom)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/11 "2017-09-13T03:30:56Z")
> [@48Willys](#):
>
> One local scrap yard has a very large shredding machine. They shred the cars & put the small pieces into gondola cars. These pieces are shipped via UPRR. Again, IDK where. Heck, the scrap may be being shipped to China for all I know.
I worked on the West Coast docks. Lots of scrap metal and paper is shipped to China.
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### Author:  [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/12 "2017-09-13T17:17:52Z")
Based on what I see in local traffic, all the cars go on the same road as I do.
But that’s not what you asked…
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/13 "2017-09-13T17:19:34Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#):
>
> Based on what I see in local traffic, all the cars go on the same road as I do.
If I need to, I go at a rest area.
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### Author:  [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/14 "2017-09-13T18:21:58Z")
> [@zoid](#):
>
> You asked what the average car dies from. My point is that in a lot of cases the car isn’t necessarily non-functional, it’s just more of a burden than the owner cares to deal with.
this is pretty much true for the most part. While a lot of people will talk about how (_insert model of car_) regularly goes eleventy-billion miles on the original engine, it’s rarely an engine failure that does them in. Transmission failure is less rare but still.
people get rid of cars when they constantly have to look at $500-1000 repair bills for everything else on the car. you know, “I just had the control arms and tie rods replaced, now I need to spend $800 for new axle shafts?”
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### Author:  [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/15 "2017-09-13T18:32:55Z")
Per this 2014 quote there were 1.2 billion vehicles on the road then: [http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1093560\_1-2-billion-vehicles-on-worlds-roads-now-2-billion-by-2035-report](http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1093560_1-2-billion-vehicles-on-worlds-roads-now-2-billion-by-2035-report)
Even if we ignored a steady increase in global vehicle ownership that would only be a 1 in 20 replacement rate. That said most cars probably die from low resale value. My first car was retired at 17 years. It was perfectly driveable, but also right at the point where repairs show up that cost more than just buying a better car.
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### Author:  [@vtxrider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vtxrider)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-the-cars-go/796202/16 "2017-09-13T19:58:37Z")
My wife and I have been married for 25 yrs.
In that time, we have owned a total of 13 - 4 wheeled vehicles (cars, trucks, SUVs, etc.)
Of those 13, we have traded 4 in on new to us vehicles, we have sold 4 to friends/acquaintances, 2 have been totaled and 3 we still own. None have ever died. The ones we traded or sold, we were just at a point of needing something different (smaller car to a mini van when we had our second child).
Of those we traded, I am sure they all got resold at auction and made their way to used car lots.
Atlanta has pretty high emissions requirements, so you never see a hunk of junk death trap rolling on the interstate unless it is from out of town, so that sort of forces people to trade up periodically.
We tend to average about 7 yrs per vehicle (of the ones that did not get totaled).