Self-service auto salvage business off to good start
By Russ Oechslin Journal correspondent| Posted: Sunday, December 02, 2007
Dan Bailey of Schaller, Iowa, uses a battery-powered impact wrench to free steering parts he is removing from a pickup truck at Grab & Go self-service auto salvage, in Spencer, Iowa. (Photo by Russ Oechslin)
SPENCER, Iowa -- While it's only been open since the first of October, Grab & Go owner Toby Shine, of Shine Bros. Corp, says his family is already looking to expand the self-serve auto salvage business to other communities -- ''and not necessarily just where we have yards.''
Shine Bros., a scrap processing company that was founded by Shine's grandfather and his brother more than 100 years ago, has smaller feeder yards in Sioux Falls and Watertown, S.D., Worthington, Minn., and Estherville, Iowa.
The Grab & Go concept is an idea his daughters Keven and Eva came up with just over a year ago. ''It's big on the West Coast," Shine explains.''
The only similar operation in Iowa is Wrench-N-Go in Des Moines, where general manager Chris Pettis says cities like St. Louis and Kansas City are his nearest competition. Closer to Spencer, another self-service yard is soon to open in Garretson, S.D., near Sioux Falls.
A seven-day business
Open seven days a week, Grab & Go manager Randy Johnson says his ''big customer is the everyday guy who needs a part and needs to go to work the next day. If a guy comes in with $40 he'll generally still have $10-20 in his pocket when he leaves -- and he can feel good about it and go to work the next day.
"The whole idea here is to get the full value of parts that would otherwise be thrown away. And, a guy can keep his car running without spending a lot of money.''
Used batteries are $12.99; tires the same prices or less; and alternators $14.99. Radios are $14.99, too. Hub caps are just $4.99.
Car bumpers, carburetors and windshields all sell for less than $30. ''And if a guy has trouble and cracks a windshield getting it off a car it doesn't cost him anything. He can go to the next like car and try again.''
The best part of the deal is that Grab & Go's parts come with a 30-day warranty. ''There's no way to tell if something like an alternator works when you take it out of a car. But they can bring it back if there' a problem,'' Johnson says.
Shade-tree mechanics and repair techs also make up a good percentage of Grab & Go's clientele. Dan Bailey, of Schaller, Iowa, spent a recent Saturday looking for parts he might use in rebuilding cars. He came equipped with a battery-powered impact wrench to help make the dismantling easier.
At the same time, Noe Garduno, of Spencer, was carefully removing a windshield on a 1994 Dodge Intrepid, saving hundreds of dollars compared to new, he explained.
Year's preparation
Grab & Go manager Randy Johnson spent almost a year buying cars for the yard before it opened. His vehicles -- mostly from the 1960s through the 1990s, Johnson notes -- will be available for only two or three months before heading for the Shine Bros. automobile shredder across the street.
Part of what sets the Grab & Go operation and yards like it apart from older salvage yards is the way the vehicles are neatly displayed -- raised on wheel rims so parts can be more easily accessed from beneath them. Cars are in one area. Pick-up trucks in another. And they are sorted by manufacturer.
Before the cars are put in the yard they are brought inside, the batteries are removed, and all the fluids are drained and either recycled or sold.
''We sell used anti-freeze and recycle the oils,'' Johnson explains. ''We give our employees 10 gallons of gas each week. It's a nice little bonus for them -- especially when gas is three bucks or more a gallon.''
Grab & Go has more than a dozen employees, some of whom drive to Spencer from as far away as Peterson, Emmetsburg, Storm Lake and Laurens each day.
The Grab & Go inventory of about 1,800 autos spans about 20 acres and while the cars are set to rotate out within 90 days, some rarer, harder-to-find models may stay longer, according to Johnson.
Most of the cars Johnson buys are not wrecks, but cars no one wants or needs any more, but don't want to pay to have hauled away. Grab & Go pays $100 and up for cars and does the hauling.
Russian immigrants, Sam and Harry Shine left Chicago by train in 1902, determined to go as far as their money would allow them. When they settled in Spencer, they opened shop on Grand Avenue and started calling from farm house to farm house in a horse-drawn wagon, peddling and trading anything of value -- pots and pans, feathers, hides, furs, wool, and scrap metal, says Shine Bros. President Toby Shine.
Toby's father Ben was born in six years later. And after serving time in the military returned to Spencer and purchased the family business from his father and uncle. In 1948 the second-generation Shine started developing the current 38 acre site on the east side of Spencer.
Now owner and president of the corporation, Ben's son Toby joined Shine Bros. Corp. full-time in 1960. Within the next decade the company quit handling hides and phased itself out of the wool business to concentrate on metals.
To stay competitive in the metals business Shine Bros. got into the wire chopping business. Three non-ferrous chopping lines now allow the company to process any type of material efficiently.
More recently Shine Bros. added an automobile shredder.
Shine Bros., a scrap processing company that was founded by Shine's grandfather and his brother more than 100 years ago, has smaller feeder yards in Sioux Falls and Watertown, S.D., Worthington, Minn., and Estherville, Iowa.
The Grab & Go concept is an idea his daughters Keven and Eva came up with just over a year ago. ''It's big on the West Coast," Shine explains.''
The only similar operation in Iowa is Wrench-N-Go in Des Moines, where general manager Chris Pettis says cities like St. Louis and Kansas City are his nearest competition. Closer to Spencer, another self-service yard is soon to open in Garretson, S.D., near Sioux Falls.
A seven-day business
Open seven days a week, Grab & Go manager Randy Johnson says his ''big customer is the everyday guy who needs a part and needs to go to work the next day. If a guy comes in with $40 he'll generally still have $10-20 in his pocket when he leaves -- and he can feel good about it and go to work the next day.
"The whole idea here is to get the full value of parts that would otherwise be thrown away. And, a guy can keep his car running without spending a lot of money.''
Used batteries are $12.99; tires the same prices or less; and alternators $14.99. Radios are $14.99, too. Hub caps are just $4.99.
Car bumpers, carburetors and windshields all sell for less than $30. ''And if a guy has trouble and cracks a windshield getting it off a car it doesn't cost him anything. He can go to the next like car and try again.''
The best part of the deal is that Grab & Go's parts come with a 30-day warranty. ''There's no way to tell if something like an alternator works when you take it out of a car. But they can bring it back if there' a problem,'' Johnson says.
Shade-tree mechanics and repair techs also make up a good percentage of Grab & Go's clientele. Dan Bailey, of Schaller, Iowa, spent a recent Saturday looking for parts he might use in rebuilding cars. He came equipped with a battery-powered impact wrench to help make the dismantling easier.
At the same time, Noe Garduno, of Spencer, was carefully removing a windshield on a 1994 Dodge Intrepid, saving hundreds of dollars compared to new, he explained.
Year's preparation
Grab & Go manager Randy Johnson spent almost a year buying cars for the yard before it opened. His vehicles -- mostly from the 1960s through the 1990s, Johnson notes -- will be available for only two or three months before heading for the Shine Bros. automobile shredder across the street.
Part of what sets the Grab & Go operation and yards like it apart from older salvage yards is the way the vehicles are neatly displayed -- raised on wheel rims so parts can be more easily accessed from beneath them. Cars are in one area. Pick-up trucks in another. And they are sorted by manufacturer.
Before the cars are put in the yard they are brought inside, the batteries are removed, and all the fluids are drained and either recycled or sold.
''We sell used anti-freeze and recycle the oils,'' Johnson explains. ''We give our employees 10 gallons of gas each week. It's a nice little bonus for them -- especially when gas is three bucks or more a gallon.''
Grab & Go has more than a dozen employees, some of whom drive to Spencer from as far away as Peterson, Emmetsburg, Storm Lake and Laurens each day.
The Grab & Go inventory of about 1,800 autos spans about 20 acres and while the cars are set to rotate out within 90 days, some rarer, harder-to-find models may stay longer, according to Johnson.
Most of the cars Johnson buys are not wrecks, but cars no one wants or needs any more, but don't want to pay to have hauled away. Grab & Go pays $100 and up for cars and does the hauling.
Russian immigrants, Sam and Harry Shine left Chicago by train in 1902, determined to go as far as their money would allow them. When they settled in Spencer, they opened shop on Grand Avenue and started calling from farm house to farm house in a horse-drawn wagon, peddling and trading anything of value -- pots and pans, feathers, hides, furs, wool, and scrap metal, says Shine Bros. President Toby Shine.
Toby's father Ben was born in six years later. And after serving time in the military returned to Spencer and purchased the family business from his father and uncle. In 1948 the second-generation Shine started developing the current 38 acre site on the east side of Spencer.
Now owner and president of the corporation, Ben's son Toby joined Shine Bros. Corp. full-time in 1960. Within the next decade the company quit handling hides and phased itself out of the wool business to concentrate on metals.
To stay competitive in the metals business Shine Bros. got into the wire chopping business. Three non-ferrous chopping lines now allow the company to process any type of material efficiently.
More recently Shine Bros. added an automobile shredder.
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