Taking parts off your car can be time-consuming, difficult, and even dangerous – and there’s nothing to guarantee that the results will be worth it. However, we can say for certain that if you start removing parts from your vehicle, you’ll get less for it when you scrap your car — so it’s worth thinking carefully before you get that wrench in hand.

Why do people remove parts from their cars?

It’s a simple question with a simple answer: to try and make extra money. If the car has been written off but there are a couple of key parts that are still in serviceable condition, it’s understandably tempting to want to remove them and sell them separately. Catalytic converters, alloy wheels, and batteries are all common targets. Of course, selling isn’t necessarily the only motivation – some people choose to remove parts for use in other cars, or to have spares on hand in case of an emergency. Generally though, those people tend to be professional mechanics, or other people with a bit more automotive know-how. And even if you’ve got similar expertise, it’s still a decision that’s worth weighing up very carefully. Here’s why.

What risks are involved?

Stripping parts from your car isn’t a quick or simple job. In fact, it raises several key obstacles that can sometimes aren’t obvious from the outset. The biggest ones include:

• Injury. It can be incredibly risky to jack up a car to remove wheels, crawl underneath for the exhaust, or disconnect the electrics. Without proper knowledge and equipment, it’s easy to damage the part you were trying to salvage – or even worse, cause yourself an injury.
• Time and effort. Removing parts from your car often isn’t a single straightforward job. In fact, every part you remove can essentially become a separate task. Then there’s the cleaning, photographing, listing, messaging, packaging, and delivery or collection. Multiply that by several parts and it becomes an exhausting process with no guaranteed outcome.
• Storage issues. Most car parts aren’t small. Tyres, wheels, batteries, and exhaust systems all take up room. If you don’t have secure, dry storage space, you’ll quickly run into problems.
• Legal complications. Taking out key components might require you to update DVLA records. If you don’t, you risk fines or confusion when the car is collected. It’s another admin step that often catches drivers off guard.
• Environmental regulations. Fluids, batteries, and certain metals need proper handling and disposal. You can’t just dump them in the bin or leave them lying around. Getting it wrong could mean environmental harm or legal trouble – or again, risk to yourself or your family.
• Loss of scrap value. As we’ve touched on above, quotes from scrap yards are based on complete cars. Once parts go missing, that price can drop sharply or be pulled entirely. The supposed gain from selling parts often ends up cancelling out what you lose in the scrap value.

So is it worth it?

For most drivers, all the time, effort, or risk to remove parts before scrapping a car is not worth it. Instead, it’s often faster, easier, and – most importantly – more lucrative to get your car picked up by an Authorised Treatment Facility. That way, everything is taken care of on your behalf, from the collection right through to getting that all-important Certificate of Destruction.

And of course, that’s exactly where we can help here at EMR Vehicle Recycling. With more than 70 years of experience to our name, we’re committed to getting you the very best price. What’s more, it couldn’t be easier – all you need to do is enter your car reg and postcode into the fields on our homepage, and you’ll have an instant online quote before you can say “scrap my car”. Ready to find out what yours is worth?