The term junkyard can be misleading. The name may make you think of a smelly and smoldering dump or rusty, wrecked cars. This is not the case, and it’s why the term “salvage yard” is often more apt to describe the resting place of out of commission cars.
Salvage yards hold hundreds, if not thousands of cars that have been deemed “totaled” by insurance companies, and therefore no longer safe to drive, or not worth fixing. However, these cars can still contain a greater majority of working parts than non-working parts. This is especially true for cars that were totaled soon after being manufactured.
For example, if a new SUV drives off the dealer lot and gets T-boned, significant damage is incurred. This significant damage can cause the insurance company to deem the car “totaled” and hauled to a salvage yard. However, there can still be a large amount of brand new parts on the vehicle that were not affected by the crash. These brand new parts can be bought from your local salvage yard and installed on your Ford or Chevy for a fraction of the price to buy them new - or used - elsewhere.
