One man’s junk is another man’s treasure as the Cash for Clunkers program moves to the auto salvage yard.

“Probably 75 percent of the vehicles we brought in, I would never have considered a clunker,” said Rick Niedbalski of Mike’s Auto Salvage in Mishawaka.

The Cash for Clunkers program has run its course as far as car dealers are concerned. “We did 141 total clunker deals so it was a phenomenal program,” said Joel Gates of Gates Toyota in South Bend. “We’re still excited, I think it’s something in the car business we’ll be talking about for a long time.”

Although Cash for Clunkers is long gone at Gates, a half dozen or so clunker trade ins still littered the back lot at the south side dealership.

It seems that auto salvage yards have had a hard time keeping up.

“We’ve got about four or five left that are just waiting to get to the scrap yard,” said Gates.

Niedbalski today called the situation “overwhelming.” Mike’s Auto Salvage has collected 140 clunkers and had to secure additional land in order to store them all.

“Very overwhelming, we’re probably adding a year’s worth of labor into six months,” Niedbalski said.

On the bright side, the vehicles coming in are said to be a cut above the typical clunker in terms of quality.

“Here’s a prime example of a ’98 Dodge truck that just look at it, looks fine,” Niedbalski said.

The law gives Niedbalski and other salvage operators six months from the time they take possession of a clunker—to try and piece together a profit.

After that, the vehicle must be crushed and scrapped.

“Yeah, we can sell anything off the vehicles except the engines,” he said. “We can sell doors, and mirrors, and headlights, and tail lights, body parts, and glass, all day long off these cars.”

Time seems to be the only limit to what salvage yards can sell.

“We won’t get all the parts all the good parts off anyway before it’s time to crush. We’ll just pull as many as we can and that’ll be it. Whatever is left on will have to be crushed, regardless if it’s a perfect hood or door or not, it’ll be gone,” Niedbalski said.