| By By Mike Swift, ARA Past President
Today Is The Day
Hello Fellow Auto Recyclers. If you are like me, what the
hell happened to 2018? When they say time flies, you better
believe it. I don’t know how your year was but here in Iowa
at Swifts Trails End, we did better than last year but didn’t set
any records. Then we get the great news this week, the price
of scrap drops over 40.00 dollar per ton. I did read on facebook
that seemed to be all over the country. I don’t know
if it is the tariff’s or price of oil. We always hear a bunch of
reasons, but do we ever really know why?
I know and I am sure you are doing the same. Trying to buy
the right cars, inventory the parts, get them in the system,
and make a profit.
At last year’s ARA convention, ARA is starting a mentoring
program, that hopefully will get some recyclers back on the
path to being more profitable. If you would like to learn
more about this program contact RD Hopper, Marty Hollingshead,
or myself, as recyclers, can all try to teach other
a few tricks that we can share to hopefully get each other
headed in a profitable direction in our businesses.
I know that my frustration is still with Inventory and how to
be more accurate with making sure that I am inventorying
the parts correctly. I use the tools that everyone else uses but
for me, it is time for the OEM to provide Auto Recyclers
that same info that the collision industry uses, so they are
accurate when they do an estimate on a vehicle. It is not
easy to identify parts, for example mirrors. How many different
mirrors does each vehicle have. Some over 20 different
types. We have to ask 20 questions to determine what the
customer has and we already had to google it to see what
we might have. We look stupid. Our same customer called
the Dealer. The Dealer asked for the last 8 of the vin, and
gave the customer and answer. In seconds. We have to take
minutes to check and to double check. Auto Recyclers need
Build Sheet Data today.
So another reason I am writing today, is to let you know that
ARA is committed to working on another year of trying to
get us this information. The last 2 years we had HR2460
and sponsored by Adam Kinzinger, from Illinois. So now
with a new year, new congress, we have worked on making
the language to say basically, “Just give us, Auto Recycler,
what you give all of the other Auto Industries, No More,
No less.”
The biggest part of this comes at a cost. ARA PAC fund
needs our help today. I know that we just got over elections
and candidates asking for money but today is the day.
It is raining! More and more Auto Recyclers are closing their
doors. So if we want to continue and provide our customers
with OEM parts with a more affordable price, then we need
invest some money in the ARA PAC. We need to make
sure that ARA can be in front of the right people. Consumer
People, OEM, the list goes on.
A lot of people can join in on this and I am asking today for
our industry. If you can contact me and commit $50.00 a
month, $100.0 per month or send a check for any amount.
Please contact me at mike@trailsendauto.com. I have been
asked to help with the ARA PAC fund. So I am asking today.
I am committed and I need you to commit too. Our
Future is in Our hands. It has to be us to help maintain what
we have and hopefully get Build Sheet Data in our YMS
today. If you have ay question please call me. If you agree or
disagree please call or contact me.
Only We Can make this better for All Auto Recyclers
Please contact me at anytime at mike@trailsendauto.com.
Living the Dream in Auto Recycling
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