Every vehicle that arrives gets listed on this site while it is coming apart, so you can see what is here before it is all gone. This is what happens in between.
It gets assessed before a spanner touches it
The first job is working out what the damage actually cost. A crash rarely writes off a whole vehicle: it writes off a corner of one.
A hit on the front left takes the left guard, the left headlight, the left front suspension and brakes, and the left CV shaft. It leaves the engine, the gearbox, the transfer case, both rear doors, the whole right side and every tail light untouched. That is why a badly bent vehicle can still be full of good parts, and why we list the damage on every vehicle here.
The parts sitting right beside the damage get flagged rather than written off. A radiator behind a front left hit might be perfect or might be pushed, so it gets checked properly before it goes on a shelf rather than being guessed at either way.
The valuable things come off first
In rough order: engine, gearbox, transfer case, diffs, then the panels and lights, then the interior, then everything else. Anything electrical is run before it comes out, while there is still a battery and a loom to run it with.
Everything gets tagged
A part with no tag is a part nobody can identify in six months. Each one leaves the vehicle with the stock number of the vehicle it came off, so we can always tell you what it fitted and what condition the donor was in.
What is left
Fluids are drained and disposed of properly, the battery and tyres go to the right places, and the shell goes for scrap steel. The parts that are worth having are the point of the exercise; the shell is what is left over.
Why the list changes daily
A vehicle is at its fullest the day it arrives and emptiest the day it leaves. If you can see the part you want on a vehicle here, do not sit on it.