UK Recession and demand for used car parts
Autumn 2008 and the UK is now officially in recession. Registrations of new cars are down 20%. Retail shops have reported a sharp downturn in takings. Despite the cripplingly high cost of both diesel fuel and unleaded petrol, artificially high because most of it is Government tax, transport will remain essential business and personal expenditure. Demand for used car parts has steadily risen over the past 10 years. The automotive industry anticipates an ever increasing need to recycle, with future legislation committing car and car parts manufacturers, car parts suppliers, car dealerships, dismantlers, breakers yards, and scrap dealers to recycle a greater percentage of their inventory. Over two million cars are written off every year in the UK. It is estimated that 10% i.e. 200,000 need not have been shipped to the scrap-yard. Insurance companies are looking at changing how they calculate accidents and write offs, by offering customers an option of repair work with used car parts. This is in accordance with environmental initiatives. At present it not compulsory for insurance customers, but the time is fast approaching when it may become the norm rather than exception. This extra demand will be a further boost to the growing used car parts market. CarSpareFinder, one of the leading internet parts location services, attracts over 140,000 unique visitors a month to its website. It has launched other initiatives to help breaker yards distribute and sell more of the stock of recycled car parts, such as CarSpareAuctions. It is also helping raise the profile of breaker yards by the launch of Breaker Yard Finder, which will hopefully encourage more consumers of used car parts source the products locally.
