I spent a good chunk of the day yesterday junking and was rather surprised at the -

[Bill R.]

prices that the junkyards were asking for parts on various cars... Has
anybody else noticed a big increase in used car parts prices lately?

[George M]

I do...but not a distinct upperward trend out of of step with rising new part costs. I have always found salvage yard prices to be high. I find the best practice is to let my fingers do the walking and let the best house win. I can dig out a good list of BMW salvage yards that are on-line if interested...the only way to go...rarely will I walk through a yard anymore only to be victim of some guy behind the counter who thinks since you are there and want the part he can inflate the price. Also, I find that many times for a few bucks more it many times pays to simply purchase an OEM replacement part through an excellent distributor like BMA or up and coming Racing King...not much more and an new part.
My $0.02
George

[Scott H]

Many of the junkyards are getting better about knowing which parts are valuable to the consumer. I don't know if their computer systems have allowed them to evaluate this better or what, but it's hard to find a car part at a wrecker ,and slip out with said part (i.e. LKM) for a steal.

[MikeV]

... some guy behind the counter who thinks since you are there and want the part he can inflate the price.

Hah - I thought that only happened to me!

[Bill R.]

goofy stuff that customers asked me to get over the last month... Mostly things like spare tires and wheels for people that had cars with no spare or with a spacesaver spare.. I had 4 of those to look for.. some parts for a ford clubwagon like Micah has, had a whole list of parts for it to look for.
Some mercedes 126 parts, mostly interior and dash crap. You get the idea,
I did see a 91 750 that just came in that had some halfway decent front seats in it..I thought about them for my truck but he wanted 250 each for them and they weren't that nice... Another thing that surprises me is that the yards that don't normally have bmw stuff had a couple like this 750 and here the ebox cover was off and all the components out in the weather getting rained on... (thats why I went junking, weather was actually lousy here)

I do...but not a distinct upperward trend out of of step with rising new part costs. I have always found salvage yard prices to be high. I find the best practice is to let my fingers do the walking and let the best house win. I can dig out a good list of BMW salvage yards that are on-line if interested...the only way to go...rarely will I walk through a yard anymore only to be victim of some guy behind the counter who thinks since you are there and want the part he can inflate the price. Also, I find that many times for a few bucks more it many times pays to simply purchase an OEM replacement part through an excellent distributor like BMA or up and coming Racing King...not much more and an new part.
My $0.02
George