Topic: Thinking about starting a salvage bussiness

[DavePhipps]

I  live in Bloomington Indiana and our only bike salvage shop shut down many years ago.
I'm seriously thinking about starting a boneyard of my own. My property is zoned commercial/residential already.
I think the pole barn is big enough for quite a few bike also.
My stumbling point is where to get bikes to salvage?
I  know that most come from insurance companies, but where do they auction them. I can't find info about this online.
If you have any links or advice please feel free to comment.

[Shenanigans]

I think you need to get a certain license or something to be able to buy at insurance actions.

[Uncle Ernie]

You'll need a business plan;
What about an environmental impact statement?
Various licenses / permits / fees?
Insurance responsibilites?
Dump / disposal fees? (most places have to pay to have chemicals and tires taken away- around here, anyway)

After all that, just Google around using words like "state aucions", "insurance auctions", etc
Also, put ads around offering to dispose of old bikes.  People clean old buildings and don't know what to do with junk like that.

[CaféElite]

China...

[Shenanigans]

The main yard in Phoenix is having some troubles since the person who owned half of it died. Its a well established yard with 2 football fields worth of old bikes (anyold SOHC4 you can imagine, preserved in the Arizona air) and a steady stream of newer bikes bought and sold from the insurance companies. The business is not the problem its the family of the deceased who wants to sell it You could buy them off of their half.

Just sayin'


/Really would hate to see this yard go.

[number13]

I visit my favorite local junkyard (Union Salvage) frequently.
I always take a few moments to talk to
the owner, a real nice guy. He ALWAYS complains
about his property taxes. It got to be so bad that
2 years ago he scrapped all of his older Jap frames
rather that pay the taxes on a bunch of junk which
netted, according to him, 300 bucks that year.

[fuzzybutt]

i thought about doing the same thing a while back. the permits and licenses are bad enough but the enviromental regulations and all hte hoops you'll have to jump through make it a losing proposition. the only local salvage yard (45 miles away) is selling most of his stock off for scrap as he gets way more money that way.

[DavePhipps]

I'm not going to start as a full blown salvage yard. It's mainly going to be a few parts bikes [parted on Ebay. If I make enough doing that then I  might open something to the public. I've got a Pole Barn that can hold about 30 bikes, so it's never going to be a huge side biz.
Right now I work in tech support so I'm more comfotable doing most of my biz on the internet.

[jhasewhite]

City tow auto return auctions...

They usually have at least a few bikes for sale in every major city every week. Usually under $150 for any salvage title bike. Some run great - I just took a $100 suzuki gs750 to Oregon and back with no problems.