Transport trucks from across the state deliver about 120 wrecked vehicles per month. Workers with air wrenches and power saws disassemble the vehicles, part by part, mark them with a bar code like groceries, and store them for resale.
Taillights and transmissions, alternators and axles, door panels and dashboards. Anything that hasn’t been destroyed in the accident is either unbolted or cut free, then washed and dried, labeled and located.
“Everything that comes off the vehicles goes someplace. From the tires to the fluids,” said Ralph Snyder, the man who built the business with his son, Dan, beginning 22 years ago. “I can’t think of anything on these cars that isn’t recycled.”
Standing 6-foot-6, sturdy as an oak even at age 64, Snyder looks as if he could snatch an engine block from its mounting bolts with bare hands. Walking through the 20-acre facility, he jokes with longtime employees he calls invaluable.
But Snyder says he’d be lost without software systems designed for the used auto parts business, an integral part of surviving in a brutal business with a profit margin thinner than sheet metal.
“The computer tells us what we need to buy. We look at literally thousands of cars a week in insurance salvage pools across Texas,” Snyder said. “The computer knows that. They know ahead of time what we’re going to sell in 90 days.”
But “Mr. Computer,” as Snyder would say, also tracks inventory.
“When they sell a piece that’s in the yard, the computer will say go to J-3-A and that’s where that vehicle is. Without the computer, we’re just hobbled.”
Snyder ships parts across the United States, sometimes Europe, and south of the border. Mexicans buy a lot of engine blocks, he said.
Closer to home, local body shops also buy Snyder parts. One reason: unlike the old junkyards, these parts are guaranteed.
Bill Metcalf, owner of the Auto Body Clinic in Temple, said he buys fenders, doors, suspension parts, all sorts of stuff from Snyder.
“We’ve been dealing with them a long time,” Metcalf said. “It’s easier for us if we can get it from them. If we don’t like it, they’ll pick it up and bring us something else.”
The auto salvage business today is highly regulated. Workers are required to drain fluids and then document the information. Reports on brake fluid, oil, Freon and antifreeze must be submitted to government agencies on the county, state and federal level. Snyder keeps an environmental engineer on retainer.
“That amounts to several hundred dollars per vehicle overhead that’s placed on a vehicle through government mandates,” Snyder said.
Snyder doesn’t just recycle cars. He built part of his warehouse from steel water tower legs, using them for beams to hold up oak planks on the second floor.
Inside the air-conditioned office, workers take orders on the phone and the Internet. Ralph’s son, Dan, sits behind a desk with three computer monitors. After graduating from a small university in Wisconsin, he joined his dad in Holland to build the business, and they became partners.
In the early days, the Snyders took whatever odd jobs they could find to keep the business running.
“We used to fix flats, we used to do installations of engines and transmissions also. We did all kinds of geeky stuff,” the younger Snyder said.
Now that the family business is rolling down the road into the 21st century, the elder Snyder said he is not slowing down. He disdains vacations and idle time. And don’t talk about retirement.
“I’ll get a little rest when they close the lid.”
fafflerbach@temple-telegram.com
