Salvage on the edge of town

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This article was published 28/04/2015 (3844 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When you write off your wheels in Winnipeg, there’s one thing you can count on.

Maybe you’ve been rear-ended in your 1984 Pontiac Parisienne on an afternoon trip to pick up a couple pops after work. Maybe you hit a deer in your brand-new Dodge Ram 1500 driving back from Birds Hill Park. Or maybe you left your 2008 Toyota Camry parked on the street and it took a pounding in a crazy hail storm.

It really doesn’t matter how or why your vehicle is written off by Manitoba Public Insurance. If yours is one of the 30,000 some-odd rides that MPI writes off every year, and you live in or near Winnipeg, your vehicle will end up at MPI’s salvage yard, located at 1981 Plessis Rd.

“When your vehicle’s a writeoff, MPI offers you fair market value based on an independent appraisal,” explained MPI spokesman Brian Smiley.

On top of the damage claimed, appraisers take into account the number of kilometers on the vehicle, presence or amount of rust, the make, model, and age, among other factors.

According to MPI, the three primary factors in determining the price offered for a write-off are “the cost of fixing the damage, the actual cash value of your vehicle based on its fair market value before it was damaged, and the salvage value of your vehicle, which is how much we can sell your damaged vehicle for.”

If the cost of fixing it is more than the difference between what the writeoff costs MPI and the price they expect they could get at auction, then a writeoff it is.

“If you accept our offer, then we pay you out. You can go out and buy a new vehicle, and we take your vehicle into salvage,” Smiley continued.

At any time, the salvage yard on Plessis Road has at least 800 writeoffs waiting to be auctioned, with room for another 3,000 to await auction or the settlement of claims.

Located at the northwestern edge of Transcona, just north of Gunn Road, the 50-acre compound may seem at first glance like a car graveyard, where four-wheeled dreams go to die. But the salvage yard is also a place of renewal. Every single vehicle that MPI auctions is sold, and moves on, to serve some other purpose.

Every Wednesday, approximately 400 salvaged vehicles pass through MPI’s auction hall. The 21,000-odd vehicles auctioned every year accounts for “about $37 million” in revenue for MPI.

You might wonder who in their right mind would pay good money for some of the wrecks in the yard: front ends completely crushed, air bags all deployed and windows all broken. And worse. But MPI’s manager of salvage operations Adrian DeFolter said that every week, every single vehicle for auction is sold.

“They all go,” he said. “All of them.”

Some people buy vehicles with very little damage. These can be repaired with a little elbow grease and mechanical know-how and (provided they have a Body Integrity Inspection Certificate and a Certificate of Inspection) put back on the road. Some buy vehicles for parts, for personal or commercial use. And others buy wrecks for the recycle value of the metal and other materials.

The only vehicles that don’t get a second life on the MPI auction floor, Smiley explained, are those that were involved in a fatal accident, “or if the vehicle was written off due to rodent infestation.”

Rodent infestation?

Yes, rodent infestation.

Smiley said that while small, rodents (mice in particular) can make a big mess of vehicles. When left unattended — both for a short period of time like a long weekend, or an extended stretch like a winter vacation — rodents can quickly take up residence in vehicles.

Though the mess mice make of a vehicle’s interior or wiring, along with the potential damage, is itself cause for concern, the most serious risk these infestations pose is as a potential source of hantavirus.

“If you find even a couple dead mice and some droppings, call us,” Smiley said. “It’s not worth the risk.”

In 2014, 2,620 rodent claims were opened with MPI, Smiley added. As a result 1,083 of those vehicles were written off, while the remainder were able to be cleaned.

Smiley also noted that rodent claims have been on the rise lately, both in Winnipeg and in rural communities. However, he was unsure whether that was due to an overall increase in rodent population or simply a greater understanding by the public that MPI provides coverage in the event of infestation.

Vehicles written off due to rodent infestation, or those that were involved in a fatality, are crushed and recycled. MPI does not crush the vehicles themselves, though. Rather, there are three companies in Manitoba that bid for crushing contracts: Gerdau Ameristeel, Industrial Metals, and Sametco Auto. The scrap metal is then recycled.

While an accident, an act of vandalism, or a rogue squirrel taking up residence in your backseat may be the end of the road for your time with your wheels, the salvage yard may well prove to be but one stop on that vehicle’s journey. Reused or recycled, the road, they say, goes on forever.

For more information on the process MPI goes through in determining whether or not your vehicle is a writeoff, or for more information about buying salvage, visit www.mpi.mb.ca

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