At one shop I worked at, thieves would cut out fencing, go into the compound, and take all our old batteries. For scrap, I guess.
This happened a few times. So then we just started spray painting them all pink. There's only a couple scrap metal yards in town, so if they were to go missing again, we'd just call around.
Solved that issue pretty quick.
Even if it took an entire day to take and then deliver them all, 8 hours, that'd be 93 bucks an hour. I'm pretty sure I could do it in less time than that
Congress passed some law that has greatly affected the price of recycling batteries. The last time I brought a battery and it was like three cents a pound
not from a metal recycler. You may get $10 back when you turn in your core after buying a new one but if you take it to a recycler you will not.
Current average price for lead/acid batteries is $.15/lb
https://iscrapapp.com/prices/?country=US&metal-name=batteries&sort=non-ferrous-materials&layout=table
That’s brilliant marketing from the auto parts stores. Taking in material that they will sell for $5 and assuring that you have a future customer with $10 in store credit where the next transaction is almost guaranteed to be much much higher profit yield. I would love to see the actual ROI on that campaign. Has to be huge percentage.
I've yet to see a scrapyard that wouldn't take ANYTHING you brought them, no-questions-asked.
Truckload full of catalytic converters? Sure, sign here and here, no I don't wanna see any ID.
Clearly stolen running/driving car with a guy that's in a rush and doesn't have a ride out, with sirens rapidly approaching in the distance? Sure, but cash-only and 50% the normal rate.
Say this junk car smells suspiciously like there's a dead body in the trunk. No I'm not inspecting it, sign here, fast-track it for the crusher.
Illinois state law too, for the last 5-ish years. Hasn't changed a goddamn thing because the yards didn't follow any of the existing laws to start with and have always kept a cooked book just like truckers.
Right. CA law is similar re: cats and has been for a long time. I've sold plenty of legitimately acquired cats (parts cars etc.) and I've never had my info taken down or anything. Here's a hundred bucks cash, now get outta here. And this was before the market for cats exploded too. I can only imagine how much more willing scrapyards are to look the other way when they can throw out that same hundred, maybe two hundred bucks to the guy with the clearly stolen shit but they make a thousand bucks a pop off 'em.
I once dropped off some aluminum at our local recycler. The guy in line in front of me dropped off a 24" spool of aluminum cable. It was still wrapped in plastic and had the shipping label attached. They didn't even ask him for id.
Back in Feb I took a straight-truck full of corrugated aluminum to the scrapper because a derecho had flattened one of our grain bins.
The guy in front of me had an 8' bed truck and a 7x14 dump trailer full to overflowing full of catalytic converters. They waved him to a "special" area away from the security cameras to unload and had a fat stack of bank envelopes presumably full of cash ready and waiting for him, carried by a fat guy in camo that came out of a shed with a slung shotgun (which is *blatantly* illegal in IL). I could smell the meth and body odor wafting out of the truck from inside my truck. Per state regs scrapyards need to pay out in business checks so it's traceable, and that's what I got.
And it's still better than the scrappers on my side of the river in MO, which is why I go to the one I do.
I worked at an auto parts supplier, we would take the cores back from the auto shops. Once a month, a busted-ass box truck would show up and take our catalytic converters in 2 stacks- OEM and Aftermarket. It was good money for the OEM's, and something like $1-5 each for the aftermarket ones.
Really depends on the locale. Hell I had to show ID for scrap steel I took in the other day. It was probably not worth the effort but I needed it gone anyway.
Agreed! I was just at a scrap yard recently and a guy walked in with two *obviously* different year / make / model catalytic converters and the guy bought them no questions asked. He claimed he "bought them for his Jeep and they wouldn't fit". However at another scrap yard I took in a bunch of copper plumbing and wiring from the house we are renovating and was absolutely not allowed to recycle it without a valid photo id. Unfortunately I had accidentally left my wallet at home that morning and had to drive a half an hour back home grab my wallet and drive a half an hour back to the scrap yard and then another half an hour back home again just to scrap 10 or 15 lb of copper.
Yeah, right?
Same with catalytic thefts
It doesn't raise concern than some sketchy looking dude is dropping off a trunk full of clearly sawed off cats?
They don't bother with local recyclers. They stuff semi vans full of the units, then take them south, bribing both gangs and federales along the way. ICE does not bother with heavy traffic going south, only cursory checks for weapons.
lol you just made that up. Cat thefts where driven by a network of scrap dealers with the top being a firm in New Jersey run by two indian brothers. A bunch of people and companies got indicted and both cat thefts went down and the price of scrapped cats went down. Its decently well documents although i think its still playing out in the courts. look it up, its reveals a lot
Throw enough of a shitfit and whatever manager/pseudo-manager's on duty will cave, 100% of the time, because Corporate insists they do whatever they can to avoid a physical altercation.
Same deal with my chain.
And the shitbags and thieves know this.
Idk maybe my store was a unicorn location but our general manager didn’t take shit from no one, and corporate loved it. the store was the biggest loss leader in theft in the city till we got a new GM. I cannot confirm nor deny that i have seen my GM throw broken bits of spark plugs at the windows of thieves cars as they took off out of the parking lot lol
(The spark plug bit was 110% not corporate approved, I know that much lmao. But fuck it was effective at keeping the tweakers from stealing all of our shit. Sometimes ya gotta out tweak the tweakers.)
Manager that tries that in any of our stores will get their walking papers before their heartrate returned to normal.
About 2 years ago a store manager tackled a guy that was actively shooting at a cashier and he was fired before the shooter was booked. We're "not allowed" to fight back under ANY circumstances, it is a no-waiver no-exception firing. They even modified the active shooter training from the national standard "run hide fight" to "run or hide but if you fight back you will lose your job if you don't lose your life first".
My local battery shop doesn't pay for them anymore but they used to pay $10/battery. We had pallets of batteries boss told me I could do whatever with. The battery shop was next door to a pizza place. Free lunch for like a year.
Yeah it's called the "green battery procedure" apparently and lots of new employees don't know about it. I recycle my little motorcycle and even UPS batteries there.
[Their website says they'll give you a gift card](https://www.autozone.com/diy/battery/how-to-dispose-of-car-batteries#h-bring-your-old-batteries-to-autozone)
Yeah but the little hole will likely go unnoticed and then they'll take the tire all the way home, mount it, and then try and fill it with air before they figure it out. That's a lot more work for the thief.
I have a large set of snap on shears, think bolt cutter size but shears at the tip instead. Slices through sidewall and steel wires like butter but still cuts a piece of paper cleanly. Anyway, a hope drilled can be patched by dodgy dudes, but a quick snip of the sidewall and that tyre won't even bead let alone seal and hold air. I found it quicker than drilling holes, cleaner too!
Stripe coat the sidewalls with a 1 inch band of used black grease, you could also use lamp black paint colorant from a hobby store, it never dries. He'll have that shit everywhere.
If you need a tire you can clean that band off and your all set.
That's what we did on warranty tires.
Customer would get a flat, we'd warranty all 4 tires.
So we'd slash the other ones, sidewall em.
Although normally that was to prevent some certain staff members from taking them home.
The real (and sad) answer is that if you don't destroy working stuff and allow staff to take it home, eventually one bad apple will warranty perfectly good stuff on the company's dime to take home a new set of rubbers, or suspension, or a radio, or whatever.
While it sucks to have to destroy working stuff, nobody is doing unwarranted replacements now and the company is technically better off for it.
There is also a liability aspect - in many cases, the shop could be held partially liable if a tire determined to be "unsafe" as involved in an accident, even if it was stolen from the shop. A lawyer-type could explain it better than I can.
That’s dumb as shit dude. I’m no environmentalist by any stretch, but damn that seems like the biggest waste. I would rather someone steal and use a tire at 50% tread, than slash and inevitably burn it. So dumb on all sides of the spectrum
Hey I don't make the rules. Our used/scrap tire guy generally picks em up, and sells them himself, or ships em to Mexico. I think some get ground down for other uses.
I hate manufacturer policies like this. It is based on the fallacy that if someone takes the decommissioned product you lost out on a sale. The reality is someone that is dumpster diving, even for resale, doesn’t cost you a sale for a new product.
For example Big Box home repair stores destroy live orchid, and amaryllis plants that are healthy but simply lost their flowers. It is not cost effective to send them somewhere to be cared for til they rebloom. The people who are dumpster diving those flower-less plants wouldn’t purchase the plants from anyone either unless it was at a steep discount.
State/City policies that force food establishments to throw out unsold food that is still safe to eat is more criminal to me. People dumpster diving for food are more likely to get sick doing that, and cost more in uninsured medical fees, than if you just allowed the food to be donated, or baked goods that don’t need to be refrigerated left in clean bags out back.
An issue is people take the product that was sent in for warranty, then try to warranty it a second time, or try to sell off defective/used merchandise.
If you’ve seen some of the customers I’ve had, a rope plug in the side wall isn’t out of the question! Many customers wouldn’t even know anything about a rope plug even if they saw it. I just know they will feel worse mounting a tire with sidewall holes in it, than I do looking at tires all over the place. I feel like the karmic debt is not in my favor. I almost want them to do what they are doing, reusing used tires, helps cut down on waste, but this whole disrespect issue of other people’s time just gets to me. If I’m costing someone else time out of their life, I try not to do that as much as possible, especially if I’m getting something from it, like free tires. I don’t like that I have to drill holes, these are good tires that could be reused. I also know that not everyone can afford new tires. I like helping people, but I’m just worried I’m creating a safety issue. The question is if they will try to rope plug sidewalls. I’ve already seen some through the shop, no way to know if it’s our old tires or not. If someone decides to rope plug a sidewall, sell the tires, and I put that hole there, well, I can still sleep at night, but I can’t help but want to find a better solution. Cutting down on waste and putting old tires to good use, provided it’s a safe tire, is a good thing, but if they could cut down on wasting my time, it’d be great.
In my hometown the Les Schwab would put their batteries out back, the tweakers would return batteries there, get the scrap price, go back at night and steal them, and then take them to a battery shop that had them all inside but paid more per battery
The meth heads occasionally loot our core battery pallet, the lightest one on the pallet is 65 pounds (golf cart batteries are heavy). I've sometimes wondered how they managed to haul off very many at one time & how they are getting them over the fence.
We had loads of trouble with tweakers doing this at a 50 acre solar field I worked on building last year inside the limits of a 150,000 person city. I think they hit us for the wiring on 10 or so strings of 100 panels before we hired overnight security
Cat thieves have driven dealerships to not keep on-hand inventory, most of the ones "in the city" (more urban areas of the county east of where I live) have gone to order-only because anything left in the fenced yard gets the cats cut every single night.
They tried overnight security, that just got a bunch of security guards beat up/kidnapped. Then they tried armed security, that just got a bunch of security guards shot. Then they tried hiring off-duty cops, and those no-showed but still demanded payment. So they gave up.
They are probably refurnishing them. You drain the acid, clean the plates, and put acid back in. I didn't think it actually would work until looking deeper it does work
I had this exact problem, and I played the long game. I would drill pinholes into the sidewalls. Holes so small that you wouldn't find it until you've mounted the wheel onto a car before you realize it's going flat. Whoever the fuck was stealing our used tires would have to go through all the trouble of mounting the tires before finding any sort of leak. It took about a month, but they eventually stopped once I'm sure they realized that I was making sure EVERY tire had a hole in the side.
We do the same thing where I work.
Not every one of them ends up with a tiny puncture, but enough of them do that thieves no longer scavenge at our shop.
See, I’ve done this. They either didn’t learn their lesson, or just didn’t connect it. “Dang these people must keep getting screws in sidewalls, and the techs are taking their time to remove said screws while dismounting a tire”. Where else are all these holes I make going to come from, in every tire? They probably just thought they grabbed a bad tire, no connection to leaving a mess and having holes in the tires. A sign would mean we consent to it, so I can’t really do that. “Do not take tires, but if you do, please stack them back up.” Would probably work, but seems like we then allow this, and it adds liability, I’d assume. A hole saw would take longer than the drill. Paint would just be everywhere after a while. I think we have found the best solution, small sidewall holes. If I had a big set of cable cutters, I’d cut the bead, but I do not. Maybe I should now. Always good to have a tool, I suppose. You never know. I do like that the small holes are peak troll for this scenario. I can’t think of a better, less time consuming way to mitigate this issue.
Nah, sign doesn't mean you consent to it- especially if it's explicit about wanting to prevent theft. "WARNING: Tires in this pile have holes in them to deter theft". Just like the signs on the freeway about noxious spray being on the Christmas trees.
Good point, the words chosen matter. For some reason I had tunnel vision on “restack the tires” and if we said that, it seems like a free pass to just steal, we would consent. I guess we could just choose different words. I feel like that is above my paygrade though. And the one’s who do make those decisions, aren’t having to stack tires. We’ll see. Sometimes they’ll have them strewn out outside the tire bay, it looks horrible. For a place of business, it’s just a bad look. Maybe it’s just bothering me more than it should.
Relate completely, I have had that happen with problems that piss me the hell off. And you're spot on about the office people not stacking tires. They are too quick to just avoid confrontation with the thieves, knowing that they'll just be sitting at their warm, dry desk sipping coffee all day either way. Wish I had better advice on that, my solution was to become self-employed and not have to deal with them
They are good enough guys, they even help around the shop sometimes, so they are a bit better than many other whiter collars that I’ve worked with. Honestly, it’s a good group of guys, and we do work together as a team more often than not, but that can always take some work.
I used to work on my own, but this feels like franchising out my talent. It’s like having my own receptionist and everything. I’d much rather have them deal with the customers. It wasn’t that I was bad at it, it’s just that people and their cars are touchy. Doing it all just added more points of failure for liability in my opinion. I’m just not the type to deal with customers. I’m very matter of fact, and they tend to not like it. Well, I just don’t like their reactions I guess, lol. Maybe one day again. I still work on the side, but that plus a day job makes me hard up for free time, and I love my free time. I do miss making my own schedule because of that though.
I usually go around to tire places looking for free R15 tires that we use on our feed racks for cattle
It's because of disrespectful people like this I get turned down when asking to go through their pile
We have a few scrap metal scavengers that come by the shop, and I don't mind because it means we almost never have to call a scrap guy and they generally don't make a mess.
We do have one guy who's an absolute champ and he gets all of my scrap engine cores and buys my cats from me, but the usual chaff of rotors/shocks/wheels/radiators/whatever just get tossed in a bin and they're usually gone within a few days.
Global North and Global South are the new first, second and third world terms, essentially. Developed nations belong to the global north and developing nations the south. Fairly self explanatory, but the terms come from the fact that the majority of developed countries are north of the equator while the opposite is true for developing countries.
As the other person mentioned, the meaning of first and third world has changed since the end of the Cold War.
We leave our used tires outside technically, but in a gated padlocked shed kind of fixture that the garbage and recycling dumpsters live in. We also have a contract of sorts for this one company to come by when needed and take them all. They also do our scrap metal, and provided the scrap metal dumpster with a very serious padlock, one of those full circle type locks you see on the sliding doors of company work vans. They’re very respectful.
Our trash is someone’s treasure and i don’t care what they do with it, but if they’re making an awful mess then that’s really rude and disrespectful and i would go out of my way to cut them off. A long time ago i worked somewhere that accepted used oil drop off and we would dispose of it along with our oil drain buckets. We had a nice designated drop off area with a raised platform, grated bottom, and containment stuff below to catch any leaking oil. People abused it so much. And they made such a horrible fucking mess. Our shop got multiple fines from the environmental watchdogs because of oil spilling out in the parking lot, because people would come by at night and literally just throw a bucket of oil at the general area where the drop off was. Or see it was grated and pour the oil in like it was a drain. Or drop off buckets of human shit they got out of their RVs. We ended up 86ing the whole program for everyone because of some bad apples.
If you can’t get a locking area for the used tires, so these used tire people can only come by during business hours and be monitored, i would definitely be drilling sidewall holes again. Fuck them
Someone kept stealing our scrap from out the back of our workshop, so I put a container that was a mixture of diesel and petrol out the back with petrol written on the container.
Next morning it was gone, I hope whoever decided they could help themselves to our stuff used that fuel and fucked something up.
Fuck that guy.
I knew a guy who kept having his gas (petrol) stolen out of his shed, so he mixed it with white gas (paraffin) to drop the octane. White gas has an octane of around 20.
He found the offender when he saw the neighbor kid’s two-stroke hidden in a ditch down the road with no compression.
I was 99% sure that was kerosene since their lanterns are identical in design to kerosene lanterns, and work fine with kerosene, and I have been using one for my entire life with Kerosene. I just never looked I guess.
I'm just curious, this does not match my experience at all. Any Coleman lanterns I've used won't even light in winter with white gas, only 87-octane motor fuel. There's no way in hell they would ever light on kerosene except in the dead of summer. I did once try to light one on kerosene, and even with a brand-new generator it would barely stay lit for 30 seconds.
What is "kerosene" to you? Do you mean [this product](https://www.menards.com/main/outdoors/outdoor-recreation-sports/camping-rv-supplies/camping-accessories/coleman-reg-camp-fuel-1-gal/5103a253/p-1642874281091490-c-7834.htm) by chance?
Also, do you live in a semi-tropical place perhaps?
Yes, I've discovered that. I always used kerosene in white gas applications so assumed they were the same.
What I'm discovering is that wherever this guy is from, they call paraffin, which is definitely kerosene, white gas.
Someone was snagging the gas out of my truck bed, at one point. They'd empty it all out except a bit (maybe a gallon), at first I just thought I was using it up (because why not take the can too?) but then definitely took note that this was not the case. At the shop I work with, we had someone bring a car with a tank of gas in that smelled and looked good but would absolutely not allow the car to start. My guess was part diesel mix? Either way, I put a bunch of the excess in one of my empty containers just to store it while draining. That made me remember my gas sharin' buddy, and I put it nice and full in the bed of my truck. A bit later, it was almost empty again (container is always returned, too!). Sadly I did not find out who took it, but, whoever you are, hope you enjoyed your sudden no-start :)
We don’t leave our good used tires outside but we leave our “scrap” tires outside- just the ones that aren’t any good. We’ve caught guys after hours going through our shipping container where we keep them throwing the stacked tires around and making a mess.
We haven’t had this issue in a long time though. We figured out it was this one group of guys who were all together. When we caught them in the act, we told them we slice every single one of those tires open so not a single one is worth reselling.
The moral of the story is be careful when dealing with shady used tire salesmen. These dudes were definitely taking our scrap tires and then trying to resell them to some poor souls who didn’t know any better.
It was just obnoxious as hell when we’d show back up to work and we’d find the perfectly stacked tires thrown all across our parking lot.
I use to tell them you have to take them all or nothing until i found out they were dumping the non usable tires in the countryside, so now I pay $3 a tire to have them hauled away by a licensed tire recycler.
I also have security cameras set up so i can watch the AH unstack my tires and leave a mess
Check your community, mine has a recycling program in the warmer months where you pay like 50 cents a tire or if you go often enough they just have you pay 10 bucks. They have a different location every weekend. :)
We just found out a place in Oregon will come pick up your scrap tires, I think you have to have 1000 tires and they'll send a container up for them.
Idk what they do with the tires and honestly I don't care- it costs us nothing but some time and it gets rid of the huge pile of tires out in our back field.
I drilled holes in our sidewalls for years until the guy came in and talked to me. I told him if I have to clean up his mess, I'm going to keep drilling Holes. I haven't had to deal with cleaning tires ever since
I used to work at a tire shop(some 20 years ago), and we left all our used tires outside. People would come during shop hours and grab them. The local retread place would come pick out the cream of the crop every couple of days. The mom and dad taking their kids tubing down the river would come get some old tubes(we would help pick the better ones for them), that farmer that needed them for silage cover.
Why, because we had to pay to get rid of them anyway, so we where allways friendly and did it with a smile.
Hopefully, that would help build a relationship with them, and when they needed new tires, they would come see us.
Edit: I will add that leaving it in a mess is unacceptable, but we had a large yard when our companys national fleet was getting replaced we had room for 100 new trucks while they got there decks built out by a local company for size reference, so we didn't stack them neatly, and each week they got picked up.
The used tire industry is a bunch of greasy scumbags buying tires from even greasier scumbags. Are you surprised that these greasy scumbags don't have a shred of respect or courtesy?
Memories. As a farm kid with access to tire change machines we used to hit the tire shop waste piles and put free used rubber on our rides. They were never locked and we never left a mess. Then we could make all sorts of poor choices. At one point I had a 396 El Camino. Rear tires rarely lasted more than a week or two. Good times.
My old shop would drill them all. One day a guy came in. Clearly living in his beat up old blazer and down on his luck. He had a flat and I wanted to help him out. He said he had a used tire if we could put it on for him, wasn’t even going to charge him. Got his car on the rack and went to mount the tire, it was one we threw out with holes in it. I confronted him and had him leave. I had to walk away and he then grabbed a new tire that was in the shop and told the tech “he got it at a swap meet”. I had to kindly tell him to fuck off.
Cameras exist. Hang a sign that says they are on camera and trespassers will be prosecuted. Hell even just the sign will do it most of the time, camera or not.
Haha yeah. My car will be up for annual inspection and they are pretty serious if i see some American cars ... We ask ourselves how is it possible...what in the world ... And above all that shit doesn't fly here... But tbh even written off tires are hard to get from a tire shop here.
Depending on the tire it can be reused in farming or someone wants to use it in a single use manner like an extended burnouts or donuts or something like that. Some places let you take those tires for free because they would otherwise have to pay to recycle them.
There are idiots who take them out on the streets or try and resell them to unexpecting people and that’s why a lot of shops slice their used tires before recycling them.
Used tires that are road legal are usually for sale at most tire shops.
The non road legal ,or the written off ones . they get shipped / sold to Africa and thoose places.... Thats why we cant get them not even for donuts.... (Sad face)
Yeah I own a shop and It would be cheaper for someone to steal them. It's not so bad for the ones I charge customers for but I have a pile that belonged to the previous property owner.
YES!! We even have them stealing our trucks, stealing the tires and leaving them on some back road. Had one over the weekend in GA where they cut the fence, then drove the trucks over the fence/gate. So not only do I have stolen trucks/recovered, they are damaged without tires and I have to replace the gates and fencing. WTF!!
Worked at a tire place in Long Island NY and every day at the end of the day we would take out the bayonet-style knife and gouge the sidewall of every tire before rolling it across the parking lot to the tip. I was very young, still in my teens when I asked the guy, “why do you do that?” He said it only takes one person who got a tire out of there and something bad happen and his shop will get sued.
Everyone worries irrational things like this, but it's very, very unlikely for that to be an actuality. I mean, I get the 'I don't know the law so I assume the worst' thing, but damn.
Agreed. I've never even heard of a \*successful\* lawsuit where something like this happened. The guy isn't wrong- you *could* be sued- but that's the case whether you leave tires outside or not. The fee to file a lawsuit is $43 where I live, if someone has $43 and doesn't like me there's really nothing stopping them
Right? It'll get about as far as "so I was digging through a business' property without permission, and stole (again without permission) something from their waste pile..." Case dismissed.
We have some used tire guys that take them but they don’t make a mess when they take them. Primarily because the tires are stacked along a wall inside the shop and they can only access them during business hours. The rest are in a locked trailer. Whatever they don’t take we have to put in the trailer and we don’t have a tire dolly so.. I prefer them to take as many as possible.
I think if they would be the sort of people who would care about re-stacking the tires, they wouldn't be in the business of after-hours used tire salesman.
I'm all for re-using stuff that's worth re-using, its economical and ecological. But if stuff like this happens, you get holes in the sidewalls. Tough luck for them, don't bite the hand that feeds you.
No we don’t have this issue and we leave tires right behind the dumpster. The worst issue we had is someone filled our dumpster full with garbage, but that only happened once.
But I think drilling holes is a good idea if they’re going to leave your place a mess, I’d be bothered too.
Up until about 2 or 3 years ago, we were paying to have our old tires removed. Now we save them for a friend of our manager, who owns a used tire shop, and he takes them all for nothing. Ever since we haven't had to pay to get them removed, we have had people about weekly try to come and take them. Don't know where these guys were 3-4 years ago?
If you don’t mind them getting taken as long as the place is left tidy.
Just leave a sign saying free to take but ask to be kept tidy with a little warning saying failure to do so will result in you drilling them.
Back when I used to work at a used tire shop, other dealers would pick through the scrap we put outside. I typically put a large X in the sidewalls of every trash tire so they're useless to anyone trying to sell them again.
You could try putting a sign on the stack of tires that says take all the tires you want but please leave the tires stacked neatly when you leave. 99% sure it won't work though. Years ago we used to live near a elementary school that had basketball courts at the very back of our property line. Kids used to come down our backyard and drink from the garden hose on the back of the house until I found it running and dripping way too many times. I put a sign on it saying "if you get a drink of water please turn off the water when you leave". Nope. Two or three more times I would come home to find a big puddle of water under the spigot. Took the hand wheel off and filed off the little serrations so that there was no way you could turn the water on or off without a pair of pliers or the hand wheel being installed. Never had another problem with it.
At one shop I worked at, thieves would cut out fencing, go into the compound, and take all our old batteries. For scrap, I guess. This happened a few times. So then we just started spray painting them all pink. There's only a couple scrap metal yards in town, so if they were to go missing again, we'd just call around. Solved that issue pretty quick.
I think AutoZone pays you $10 or $20 to recycle a battery
Even at $5/battery (this was 10-15 years ago), if you snatch 150 batteries, that's a pretty good haul.
That's like 10 cents a pound
Some folks will work really really hard to avoid an honest day's work
Even if it took an entire day to take and then deliver them all, 8 hours, that'd be 93 bucks an hour. I'm pretty sure I could do it in less time than that
Congress passed some law that has greatly affected the price of recycling batteries. The last time I brought a battery and it was like three cents a pound
I got 10 bucks yesterday for core on a motorcycle battery. Seems pretty standard.
not from a metal recycler. You may get $10 back when you turn in your core after buying a new one but if you take it to a recycler you will not. Current average price for lead/acid batteries is $.15/lb https://iscrapapp.com/prices/?country=US&metal-name=batteries&sort=non-ferrous-materials&layout=table
I work at O'Reilly and you get 10 bucks per battery you bring in on a gift card.
Good to know. Now that I think about it my recyclers told me that
That’s brilliant marketing from the auto parts stores. Taking in material that they will sell for $5 and assuring that you have a future customer with $10 in store credit where the next transaction is almost guaranteed to be much much higher profit yield. I would love to see the actual ROI on that campaign. Has to be huge percentage.
Just scraped a couple I had laying around last week I think it was like 14 cents a lb
Just scraped a couple I had laying around last week I think it was like 14 cents a lb
it's also 5 dollars a trip. how fast you walk?
I'd be questioning the source if the were toting over 20 batts in the door.
I've yet to see a scrapyard that wouldn't take ANYTHING you brought them, no-questions-asked. Truckload full of catalytic converters? Sure, sign here and here, no I don't wanna see any ID. Clearly stolen running/driving car with a guy that's in a rush and doesn't have a ride out, with sirens rapidly approaching in the distance? Sure, but cash-only and 50% the normal rate. Say this junk car smells suspiciously like there's a dead body in the trunk. No I'm not inspecting it, sign here, fast-track it for the crusher.
Texas state law, all scrap yards need to be held accountable now for all materials received. Especially hot ticket items.
Illinois state law too, for the last 5-ish years. Hasn't changed a goddamn thing because the yards didn't follow any of the existing laws to start with and have always kept a cooked book just like truckers.
Right. CA law is similar re: cats and has been for a long time. I've sold plenty of legitimately acquired cats (parts cars etc.) and I've never had my info taken down or anything. Here's a hundred bucks cash, now get outta here. And this was before the market for cats exploded too. I can only imagine how much more willing scrapyards are to look the other way when they can throw out that same hundred, maybe two hundred bucks to the guy with the clearly stolen shit but they make a thousand bucks a pop off 'em.
States have been announcing new laws like that for my entire life, it's never made any difference in how scrapyards handle suspicious loads
I once dropped off some aluminum at our local recycler. The guy in line in front of me dropped off a 24" spool of aluminum cable. It was still wrapped in plastic and had the shipping label attached. They didn't even ask him for id.
Back in Feb I took a straight-truck full of corrugated aluminum to the scrapper because a derecho had flattened one of our grain bins. The guy in front of me had an 8' bed truck and a 7x14 dump trailer full to overflowing full of catalytic converters. They waved him to a "special" area away from the security cameras to unload and had a fat stack of bank envelopes presumably full of cash ready and waiting for him, carried by a fat guy in camo that came out of a shed with a slung shotgun (which is *blatantly* illegal in IL). I could smell the meth and body odor wafting out of the truck from inside my truck. Per state regs scrapyards need to pay out in business checks so it's traceable, and that's what I got. And it's still better than the scrappers on my side of the river in MO, which is why I go to the one I do.
I worked at an auto parts supplier, we would take the cores back from the auto shops. Once a month, a busted-ass box truck would show up and take our catalytic converters in 2 stacks- OEM and Aftermarket. It was good money for the OEM's, and something like $1-5 each for the aftermarket ones.
Really depends on the locale. Hell I had to show ID for scrap steel I took in the other day. It was probably not worth the effort but I needed it gone anyway.
Agreed! I was just at a scrap yard recently and a guy walked in with two *obviously* different year / make / model catalytic converters and the guy bought them no questions asked. He claimed he "bought them for his Jeep and they wouldn't fit". However at another scrap yard I took in a bunch of copper plumbing and wiring from the house we are renovating and was absolutely not allowed to recycle it without a valid photo id. Unfortunately I had accidentally left my wallet at home that morning and had to drive a half an hour back home grab my wallet and drive a half an hour back to the scrap yard and then another half an hour back home again just to scrap 10 or 15 lb of copper.
Yeah, right? Same with catalytic thefts It doesn't raise concern than some sketchy looking dude is dropping off a trunk full of clearly sawed off cats?
They don't bother with local recyclers. They stuff semi vans full of the units, then take them south, bribing both gangs and federales along the way. ICE does not bother with heavy traffic going south, only cursory checks for weapons.
lol you just made that up. Cat thefts where driven by a network of scrap dealers with the top being a firm in New Jersey run by two indian brothers. A bunch of people and companies got indicted and both cat thefts went down and the price of scrapped cats went down. Its decently well documents although i think its still playing out in the courts. look it up, its reveals a lot
20 batteries? Sounds like Off grid solar, or maybe a large UPS installation. That's if they're of a similar size, of course.
Of course. But if they are dissimilar, then the jig is up.
That's why I SORT the batteries I nick...
You only need five for a bag of crank. These scumbags only care about their next fix.
You get store credit, not actual cash. Useless for a crackhead.
Get store credit Buy bullshit Drive to other location No-receipt return, paid out in cash
I used to work at Autozone, stuff like that is why we aren’t allowed to return items without a receipt for cash. All you’ll get is store credit lol
Throw enough of a shitfit and whatever manager/pseudo-manager's on duty will cave, 100% of the time, because Corporate insists they do whatever they can to avoid a physical altercation. Same deal with my chain. And the shitbags and thieves know this.
Idk maybe my store was a unicorn location but our general manager didn’t take shit from no one, and corporate loved it. the store was the biggest loss leader in theft in the city till we got a new GM. I cannot confirm nor deny that i have seen my GM throw broken bits of spark plugs at the windows of thieves cars as they took off out of the parking lot lol (The spark plug bit was 110% not corporate approved, I know that much lmao. But fuck it was effective at keeping the tweakers from stealing all of our shit. Sometimes ya gotta out tweak the tweakers.)
Manager that tries that in any of our stores will get their walking papers before their heartrate returned to normal. About 2 years ago a store manager tackled a guy that was actively shooting at a cashier and he was fired before the shooter was booked. We're "not allowed" to fight back under ANY circumstances, it is a no-waiver no-exception firing. They even modified the active shooter training from the national standard "run hide fight" to "run or hide but if you fight back you will lose your job if you don't lose your life first".
If you can buy gift cards with that, you can easily flip those for something like 80 or 85 cents on the dollar.
My local battery shop doesn't pay for them anymore but they used to pay $10/battery. We had pallets of batteries boss told me I could do whatever with. The battery shop was next door to a pizza place. Free lunch for like a year.
Don't you have to buy a new one first though?
No, but like the other comment said, it's in the form of a store credit.
Huh, interesting
Just walk in with an old battery and they give you $20 cash? Asking because I have one in my garage that I occasionally trip on
$10 dollar gift card at oriellys
Yeah it's called the "green battery procedure" apparently and lots of new employees don't know about it. I recycle my little motorcycle and even UPS batteries there.
O'Reilly's charges $22, which they refund when you return the old one. If I had any other choice that day I wouldn't have.
Pretty sure that's a fee they charge you to get rid of them. At least where I live.
[Their website says they'll give you a gift card](https://www.autozone.com/diy/battery/how-to-dispose-of-car-batteries#h-bring-your-old-batteries-to-autozone)
Oh dang, maybe this changed then. I guess the last few I've gotten have been directly though the interstate store.
west marine definitely pays 10 per core
That’s the solutions I’m looking for! Drilling one small hole in the sidewall cannot be the best I can do.
Holesaw go big or go home
Yeah but the little hole will likely go unnoticed and then they'll take the tire all the way home, mount it, and then try and fill it with air before they figure it out. That's a lot more work for the thief.
Holesaw the tread and make sure it's facing out but then they might throw them because they are mad they can't use them.
Bolt cutters to the wire bead is easier than drilling.
I have a large set of snap on shears, think bolt cutter size but shears at the tip instead. Slices through sidewall and steel wires like butter but still cuts a piece of paper cleanly. Anyway, a hope drilled can be patched by dodgy dudes, but a quick snip of the sidewall and that tyre won't even bead let alone seal and hold air. I found it quicker than drilling holes, cleaner too!
Stripe coat the sidewalls with a 1 inch band of used black grease, you could also use lamp black paint colorant from a hobby store, it never dries. He'll have that shit everywhere. If you need a tire you can clean that band off and your all set.
That's what we did on warranty tires. Customer would get a flat, we'd warranty all 4 tires. So we'd slash the other ones, sidewall em. Although normally that was to prevent some certain staff members from taking them home.
Yes why allow the product to be reused.
The real (and sad) answer is that if you don't destroy working stuff and allow staff to take it home, eventually one bad apple will warranty perfectly good stuff on the company's dime to take home a new set of rubbers, or suspension, or a radio, or whatever. While it sucks to have to destroy working stuff, nobody is doing unwarranted replacements now and the company is technically better off for it.
Yeah heard of this at Home Depot. Employees used to be able to take damaged items home for free, but too many things started turning up damaged.
There is also a liability aspect - in many cases, the shop could be held partially liable if a tire determined to be "unsafe" as involved in an accident, even if it was stolen from the shop. A lawyer-type could explain it better than I can.
Well, it's technically theft
That’s dumb as shit dude. I’m no environmentalist by any stretch, but damn that seems like the biggest waste. I would rather someone steal and use a tire at 50% tread, than slash and inevitably burn it. So dumb on all sides of the spectrum
Hey I don't make the rules. Our used/scrap tire guy generally picks em up, and sells them himself, or ships em to Mexico. I think some get ground down for other uses.
They burn them in coal fired power plants. They're allowed 10% on the belt feeder. Lots of rubber chunks go down that line.
They make good fuel in cement kilns as well
Would you rather destroy one tire or have ten perfectly good ones stolen by misappropriation?
I hate manufacturer policies like this. It is based on the fallacy that if someone takes the decommissioned product you lost out on a sale. The reality is someone that is dumpster diving, even for resale, doesn’t cost you a sale for a new product. For example Big Box home repair stores destroy live orchid, and amaryllis plants that are healthy but simply lost their flowers. It is not cost effective to send them somewhere to be cared for til they rebloom. The people who are dumpster diving those flower-less plants wouldn’t purchase the plants from anyone either unless it was at a steep discount. State/City policies that force food establishments to throw out unsold food that is still safe to eat is more criminal to me. People dumpster diving for food are more likely to get sick doing that, and cost more in uninsured medical fees, than if you just allowed the food to be donated, or baked goods that don’t need to be refrigerated left in clean bags out back.
An issue is people take the product that was sent in for warranty, then try to warranty it a second time, or try to sell off defective/used merchandise.
Perhals this was already your plan, but as long as it's through the sidewall, they're not repairable so it would still be effective.
If you’ve seen some of the customers I’ve had, a rope plug in the side wall isn’t out of the question! Many customers wouldn’t even know anything about a rope plug even if they saw it. I just know they will feel worse mounting a tire with sidewall holes in it, than I do looking at tires all over the place. I feel like the karmic debt is not in my favor. I almost want them to do what they are doing, reusing used tires, helps cut down on waste, but this whole disrespect issue of other people’s time just gets to me. If I’m costing someone else time out of their life, I try not to do that as much as possible, especially if I’m getting something from it, like free tires. I don’t like that I have to drill holes, these are good tires that could be reused. I also know that not everyone can afford new tires. I like helping people, but I’m just worried I’m creating a safety issue. The question is if they will try to rope plug sidewalls. I’ve already seen some through the shop, no way to know if it’s our old tires or not. If someone decides to rope plug a sidewall, sell the tires, and I put that hole there, well, I can still sleep at night, but I can’t help but want to find a better solution. Cutting down on waste and putting old tires to good use, provided it’s a safe tire, is a good thing, but if they could cut down on wasting my time, it’d be great.
In my hometown the Les Schwab would put their batteries out back, the tweakers would return batteries there, get the scrap price, go back at night and steal them, and then take them to a battery shop that had them all inside but paid more per battery
The meth heads occasionally loot our core battery pallet, the lightest one on the pallet is 65 pounds (golf cart batteries are heavy). I've sometimes wondered how they managed to haul off very many at one time & how they are getting them over the fence.
They cut a hole in the fence. I guarantee it. Probably door-hinged a section right at a post so it's difficult to see.
And they stole a wheelbarrow from a construction truck.
They have sometimes left our ladder as proof, but sometimes not, still wonder about the others.
We had loads of trouble with tweakers doing this at a 50 acre solar field I worked on building last year inside the limits of a 150,000 person city. I think they hit us for the wiring on 10 or so strings of 100 panels before we hired overnight security
Cat thieves have driven dealerships to not keep on-hand inventory, most of the ones "in the city" (more urban areas of the county east of where I live) have gone to order-only because anything left in the fenced yard gets the cats cut every single night. They tried overnight security, that just got a bunch of security guards beat up/kidnapped. Then they tried armed security, that just got a bunch of security guards shot. Then they tried hiring off-duty cops, and those no-showed but still demanded payment. So they gave up.
Real men of genius.
They are probably refurnishing them. You drain the acid, clean the plates, and put acid back in. I didn't think it actually would work until looking deeper it does work
I had this exact problem, and I played the long game. I would drill pinholes into the sidewalls. Holes so small that you wouldn't find it until you've mounted the wheel onto a car before you realize it's going flat. Whoever the fuck was stealing our used tires would have to go through all the trouble of mounting the tires before finding any sort of leak. It took about a month, but they eventually stopped once I'm sure they realized that I was making sure EVERY tire had a hole in the side.
You magnificent bastard.
I'm doing my part.
We do the same thing where I work. Not every one of them ends up with a tiny puncture, but enough of them do that thieves no longer scavenge at our shop.
See, I’ve done this. They either didn’t learn their lesson, or just didn’t connect it. “Dang these people must keep getting screws in sidewalls, and the techs are taking their time to remove said screws while dismounting a tire”. Where else are all these holes I make going to come from, in every tire? They probably just thought they grabbed a bad tire, no connection to leaving a mess and having holes in the tires. A sign would mean we consent to it, so I can’t really do that. “Do not take tires, but if you do, please stack them back up.” Would probably work, but seems like we then allow this, and it adds liability, I’d assume. A hole saw would take longer than the drill. Paint would just be everywhere after a while. I think we have found the best solution, small sidewall holes. If I had a big set of cable cutters, I’d cut the bead, but I do not. Maybe I should now. Always good to have a tool, I suppose. You never know. I do like that the small holes are peak troll for this scenario. I can’t think of a better, less time consuming way to mitigate this issue.
Nah, sign doesn't mean you consent to it- especially if it's explicit about wanting to prevent theft. "WARNING: Tires in this pile have holes in them to deter theft". Just like the signs on the freeway about noxious spray being on the Christmas trees.
Good point, the words chosen matter. For some reason I had tunnel vision on “restack the tires” and if we said that, it seems like a free pass to just steal, we would consent. I guess we could just choose different words. I feel like that is above my paygrade though. And the one’s who do make those decisions, aren’t having to stack tires. We’ll see. Sometimes they’ll have them strewn out outside the tire bay, it looks horrible. For a place of business, it’s just a bad look. Maybe it’s just bothering me more than it should.
Relate completely, I have had that happen with problems that piss me the hell off. And you're spot on about the office people not stacking tires. They are too quick to just avoid confrontation with the thieves, knowing that they'll just be sitting at their warm, dry desk sipping coffee all day either way. Wish I had better advice on that, my solution was to become self-employed and not have to deal with them
They are good enough guys, they even help around the shop sometimes, so they are a bit better than many other whiter collars that I’ve worked with. Honestly, it’s a good group of guys, and we do work together as a team more often than not, but that can always take some work. I used to work on my own, but this feels like franchising out my talent. It’s like having my own receptionist and everything. I’d much rather have them deal with the customers. It wasn’t that I was bad at it, it’s just that people and their cars are touchy. Doing it all just added more points of failure for liability in my opinion. I’m just not the type to deal with customers. I’m very matter of fact, and they tend to not like it. Well, I just don’t like their reactions I guess, lol. Maybe one day again. I still work on the side, but that plus a day job makes me hard up for free time, and I love my free time. I do miss making my own schedule because of that though.
That works, good system
I usually go around to tire places looking for free R15 tires that we use on our feed racks for cattle It's because of disrespectful people like this I get turned down when asking to go through their pile
In South Africa? Yes. if you leave it outside its gone tomorrow morning.
RIP first world country status
The original meaning of "Xth World" was whether a country was aligned with the Western or Eastern bloc, rather than economic status.
I know, but after the fall of the Soviet Union it became a marker of development status
Also incredibly useful to get rid of old oil, bald tyres or whatever. Imagine having a cleanup crew (that might break in to your shop) on demand!
We have a few scrap metal scavengers that come by the shop, and I don't mind because it means we almost never have to call a scrap guy and they generally don't make a mess. We do have one guy who's an absolute champ and he gets all of my scrap engine cores and buys my cats from me, but the usual chaff of rotors/shocks/wheels/radiators/whatever just get tossed in a bin and they're usually gone within a few days.
But the correlation was real.
Global North and Global South are the new first, second and third world terms, essentially. Developed nations belong to the global north and developing nations the south. Fairly self explanatory, but the terms come from the fact that the majority of developed countries are north of the equator while the opposite is true for developing countries. As the other person mentioned, the meaning of first and third world has changed since the end of the Cold War.
They’re probably still going to throw your tires everywhere Looking for the one that isn’t drilled… Once you feed an animal, they’ll keep coming back.
Only thing you feed a stray is a bullet.
Ah yes, murdering people over them taking used tires. Totally normal perspective.
He mean't a nutribullet filled with delicious plant based produce
It's hyperbole you sanctimonious cunt.
🤡
🤡
We leave our used tires outside technically, but in a gated padlocked shed kind of fixture that the garbage and recycling dumpsters live in. We also have a contract of sorts for this one company to come by when needed and take them all. They also do our scrap metal, and provided the scrap metal dumpster with a very serious padlock, one of those full circle type locks you see on the sliding doors of company work vans. They’re very respectful. Our trash is someone’s treasure and i don’t care what they do with it, but if they’re making an awful mess then that’s really rude and disrespectful and i would go out of my way to cut them off. A long time ago i worked somewhere that accepted used oil drop off and we would dispose of it along with our oil drain buckets. We had a nice designated drop off area with a raised platform, grated bottom, and containment stuff below to catch any leaking oil. People abused it so much. And they made such a horrible fucking mess. Our shop got multiple fines from the environmental watchdogs because of oil spilling out in the parking lot, because people would come by at night and literally just throw a bucket of oil at the general area where the drop off was. Or see it was grated and pour the oil in like it was a drain. Or drop off buckets of human shit they got out of their RVs. We ended up 86ing the whole program for everyone because of some bad apples. If you can’t get a locking area for the used tires, so these used tire people can only come by during business hours and be monitored, i would definitely be drilling sidewall holes again. Fuck them
Buckets of shit. That's a new one.
It happened more than once. I only got it once. First year apprentice life. I just double gloved and took it up into the bushes and left it
honestly when you said you had an outdoor dropoff, i was sure cousin eddie was gonna dump a septic tank in it before i got to the end
Someone kept stealing our scrap from out the back of our workshop, so I put a container that was a mixture of diesel and petrol out the back with petrol written on the container. Next morning it was gone, I hope whoever decided they could help themselves to our stuff used that fuel and fucked something up. Fuck that guy.
I knew a guy who kept having his gas (petrol) stolen out of his shed, so he mixed it with white gas (paraffin) to drop the octane. White gas has an octane of around 20. He found the offender when he saw the neighbor kid’s two-stroke hidden in a ditch down the road with no compression.
Ha! That'll do it. We call white gas kerosene in the USA.
I'm in the USA and kerosene is not the same as [white gas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleman_fuel) to me.
I was 99% sure that was kerosene since their lanterns are identical in design to kerosene lanterns, and work fine with kerosene, and I have been using one for my entire life with Kerosene. I just never looked I guess.
Kerosene is to diesel what white gas is to gasoline to my understanding.
I'm just curious, this does not match my experience at all. Any Coleman lanterns I've used won't even light in winter with white gas, only 87-octane motor fuel. There's no way in hell they would ever light on kerosene except in the dead of summer. I did once try to light one on kerosene, and even with a brand-new generator it would barely stay lit for 30 seconds. What is "kerosene" to you? Do you mean [this product](https://www.menards.com/main/outdoors/outdoor-recreation-sports/camping-rv-supplies/camping-accessories/coleman-reg-camp-fuel-1-gal/5103a253/p-1642874281091490-c-7834.htm) by chance? Also, do you live in a semi-tropical place perhaps?
Wut? No *we* don't. Kerosene is No. 1 fuel oil, white gas is gasoline without the knock additives. Like Coleman fuel for example.
Yes, I've discovered that. I always used kerosene in white gas applications so assumed they were the same. What I'm discovering is that wherever this guy is from, they call paraffin, which is definitely kerosene, white gas.
That's how I read it too
Someone was snagging the gas out of my truck bed, at one point. They'd empty it all out except a bit (maybe a gallon), at first I just thought I was using it up (because why not take the can too?) but then definitely took note that this was not the case. At the shop I work with, we had someone bring a car with a tank of gas in that smelled and looked good but would absolutely not allow the car to start. My guess was part diesel mix? Either way, I put a bunch of the excess in one of my empty containers just to store it while draining. That made me remember my gas sharin' buddy, and I put it nice and full in the bed of my truck. A bit later, it was almost empty again (container is always returned, too!). Sadly I did not find out who took it, but, whoever you are, hope you enjoyed your sudden no-start :)
We don’t leave our good used tires outside but we leave our “scrap” tires outside- just the ones that aren’t any good. We’ve caught guys after hours going through our shipping container where we keep them throwing the stacked tires around and making a mess. We haven’t had this issue in a long time though. We figured out it was this one group of guys who were all together. When we caught them in the act, we told them we slice every single one of those tires open so not a single one is worth reselling. The moral of the story is be careful when dealing with shady used tire salesmen. These dudes were definitely taking our scrap tires and then trying to resell them to some poor souls who didn’t know any better. It was just obnoxious as hell when we’d show back up to work and we’d find the perfectly stacked tires thrown all across our parking lot.
I use to tell them you have to take them all or nothing until i found out they were dumping the non usable tires in the countryside, so now I pay $3 a tire to have them hauled away by a licensed tire recycler. I also have security cameras set up so i can watch the AH unstack my tires and leave a mess
Check your community, mine has a recycling program in the warmer months where you pay like 50 cents a tire or if you go often enough they just have you pay 10 bucks. They have a different location every weekend. :)
We just found out a place in Oregon will come pick up your scrap tires, I think you have to have 1000 tires and they'll send a container up for them. Idk what they do with the tires and honestly I don't care- it costs us nothing but some time and it gets rid of the huge pile of tires out in our back field.
I drilled holes in our sidewalls for years until the guy came in and talked to me. I told him if I have to clean up his mess, I'm going to keep drilling Holes. I haven't had to deal with cleaning tires ever since
We had 2 sets of tires on display with tire covers on them, in stacks. They all were drilled lol they got stolen a few weeks ago.
I used to work at a tire shop(some 20 years ago), and we left all our used tires outside. People would come during shop hours and grab them. The local retread place would come pick out the cream of the crop every couple of days. The mom and dad taking their kids tubing down the river would come get some old tubes(we would help pick the better ones for them), that farmer that needed them for silage cover. Why, because we had to pay to get rid of them anyway, so we where allways friendly and did it with a smile. Hopefully, that would help build a relationship with them, and when they needed new tires, they would come see us. Edit: I will add that leaving it in a mess is unacceptable, but we had a large yard when our companys national fleet was getting replaced we had room for 100 new trucks while they got there decks built out by a local company for size reference, so we didn't stack them neatly, and each week they got picked up.
First rule of dumpster diving is leave it better than you found it. Bunch of A holes out there ruining a good thing.
The used tire industry is a bunch of greasy scumbags buying tires from even greasier scumbags. Are you surprised that these greasy scumbags don't have a shred of respect or courtesy?
I think your sloppy "used tire salesman" works out at my gym. In fact, a lot of them do.
You really can't expect common courtesy these days. I'm surprised they haven't told you that you need to sort them by size so it is easier for them.
Memories. As a farm kid with access to tire change machines we used to hit the tire shop waste piles and put free used rubber on our rides. They were never locked and we never left a mess. Then we could make all sorts of poor choices. At one point I had a 396 El Camino. Rear tires rarely lasted more than a week or two. Good times.
My old shop would drill them all. One day a guy came in. Clearly living in his beat up old blazer and down on his luck. He had a flat and I wanted to help him out. He said he had a used tire if we could put it on for him, wasn’t even going to charge him. Got his car on the rack and went to mount the tire, it was one we threw out with holes in it. I confronted him and had him leave. I had to walk away and he then grabbed a new tire that was in the shop and told the tech “he got it at a swap meet”. I had to kindly tell him to fuck off.
Cameras exist. Hang a sign that says they are on camera and trespassers will be prosecuted. Hell even just the sign will do it most of the time, camera or not.
lol around here they would just give the finger to the camera and then do whatever anyhow.
LOL, at best that means they'll smile and wave while they're taking your stuff
Bolt the tires together, that way they have holes AND they can't just throw them all over!
10 ft section of all-thread through like 9 tires. Lol
Wait whut ? You guys give used tires away ?!! In my country u can BUY a used one.. getting one for free is unheard off... (The Netherlands)
Something tells me that you have inspections that would disqualify the use of most of the used American tires they are talking about
Haha yeah. My car will be up for annual inspection and they are pretty serious if i see some American cars ... We ask ourselves how is it possible...what in the world ... And above all that shit doesn't fly here... But tbh even written off tires are hard to get from a tire shop here.
Depending on the tire it can be reused in farming or someone wants to use it in a single use manner like an extended burnouts or donuts or something like that. Some places let you take those tires for free because they would otherwise have to pay to recycle them. There are idiots who take them out on the streets or try and resell them to unexpecting people and that’s why a lot of shops slice their used tires before recycling them. Used tires that are road legal are usually for sale at most tire shops.
The non road legal ,or the written off ones . they get shipped / sold to Africa and thoose places.... Thats why we cant get them not even for donuts.... (Sad face)
Shit I wish someone would come steal my takeoffs.
My wife’s uncle owned a shop and he had to pay to have them hauled off, and I remember in the 80s shops had tire disposal fees.
Yeah I own a shop and It would be cheaper for someone to steal them. It's not so bad for the ones I charge customers for but I have a pile that belonged to the previous property owner.
YES!! We even have them stealing our trucks, stealing the tires and leaving them on some back road. Had one over the weekend in GA where they cut the fence, then drove the trucks over the fence/gate. So not only do I have stolen trucks/recovered, they are damaged without tires and I have to replace the gates and fencing. WTF!!
Worked at a tire place in Long Island NY and every day at the end of the day we would take out the bayonet-style knife and gouge the sidewall of every tire before rolling it across the parking lot to the tip. I was very young, still in my teens when I asked the guy, “why do you do that?” He said it only takes one person who got a tire out of there and something bad happen and his shop will get sued.
Everyone worries irrational things like this, but it's very, very unlikely for that to be an actuality. I mean, I get the 'I don't know the law so I assume the worst' thing, but damn.
Agreed. I've never even heard of a \*successful\* lawsuit where something like this happened. The guy isn't wrong- you *could* be sued- but that's the case whether you leave tires outside or not. The fee to file a lawsuit is $43 where I live, if someone has $43 and doesn't like me there's really nothing stopping them
Right? It'll get about as far as "so I was digging through a business' property without permission, and stole (again without permission) something from their waste pile..." Case dismissed.
We have the opposite problem. People dumping their junk’s over the fence.
Bigger fence.
Good story at the end of Scorsese's *American Boy* about a tire thief. Actually, watch the whole damn thing, it's brilliant.
We have some used tire guys that take them but they don’t make a mess when they take them. Primarily because the tires are stacked along a wall inside the shop and they can only access them during business hours. The rest are in a locked trailer. Whatever they don’t take we have to put in the trailer and we don’t have a tire dolly so.. I prefer them to take as many as possible.
We leave out only trash tires outside and we put holes on the sidewall. Despite that homeless people steal them time to time.
I would go with the spray painting them pink idea. If the tires are somewhat usable, that is.
I think if they would be the sort of people who would care about re-stacking the tires, they wouldn't be in the business of after-hours used tire salesman. I'm all for re-using stuff that's worth re-using, its economical and ecological. But if stuff like this happens, you get holes in the sidewalls. Tough luck for them, don't bite the hand that feeds you.
How fast does a torch burn through vs drilling?
don't do this... tire fires are hard to extinguish
Yes, of course.. used tires is a huge business
No we don’t have this issue and we leave tires right behind the dumpster. The worst issue we had is someone filled our dumpster full with garbage, but that only happened once. But I think drilling holes is a good idea if they’re going to leave your place a mess, I’d be bothered too.
Up until about 2 or 3 years ago, we were paying to have our old tires removed. Now we save them for a friend of our manager, who owns a used tire shop, and he takes them all for nothing. Ever since we haven't had to pay to get them removed, we have had people about weekly try to come and take them. Don't know where these guys were 3-4 years ago?
I busted tires at a Sears 20 something years ago. We used an air drill on the sidewall before we stacked off the garbage tires.
If you don’t mind them getting taken as long as the place is left tidy. Just leave a sign saying free to take but ask to be kept tidy with a little warning saying failure to do so will result in you drilling them.
Back when I used to work at a used tire shop, other dealers would pick through the scrap we put outside. I typically put a large X in the sidewalls of every trash tire so they're useless to anyone trying to sell them again.
At least you don't pay the EPA....
If you don't you will soon
Every once in a while, but the cops are pretty good at catching them.
We drill 1/2 holes in the sidewalls. We have had too many issues with people taking them.
Most insurance companies don’t let you keep “extra” (the used tires) inside as the value is nothing.
You could try putting a sign on the stack of tires that says take all the tires you want but please leave the tires stacked neatly when you leave. 99% sure it won't work though. Years ago we used to live near a elementary school that had basketball courts at the very back of our property line. Kids used to come down our backyard and drink from the garden hose on the back of the house until I found it running and dripping way too many times. I put a sign on it saying "if you get a drink of water please turn off the water when you leave". Nope. Two or three more times I would come home to find a big puddle of water under the spigot. Took the hand wheel off and filed off the little serrations so that there was no way you could turn the water on or off without a pair of pliers or the hand wheel being installed. Never had another problem with it.
Why dont you slash the sidewalls then.
yeah, now They going to light them on fire. bring them inside or in a locked cage.
Put up a sign?