KEY POINTS:
It seems odd to think of a green heart beating in a sea of battered and rusting cars.
But leading used-vehicle trader Turners Auctions will launch a nationwide scheme today in Auckland to do its bit for the environment by getting more rust-buckets off the roads and into wreckers' yards.
The company will deregister and auction to the wreckers, free of charge to the owners, any old dunger which can be delivered to its damaged vehicle branches between today and the end of January.
It promises to send cheques for the full proceeds to the owners without claiming commission fees.
For those unable to arrange their own deliveries, Turners will collect old cars free from within 30km of its nine damaged vehicle depots, although the owners will in that case forfeit any auction proceeds.
It has such depots in Whangarei, Hamilton, Tauranga, Napier, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, as well as at its largest operation in Auckland, and general vehicle auction floors in seven other centres.
Those outside the 30km radius can also join the scheme, by sending photographs of their jalopies to the auctioneers, who will then arrange for the purchasers to collect them.
Turners chief executive Graham Roberts estimates about a quarter of the almost 80,000 cars auctioned annually by his firm are damaged vehicles.
Although nearly 92,000 vehicles throughout New Zealand were written off or otherwise rendered unusable last year by insurance companies, which provided Turners with most of its damaged stock, there was little accounting for a further 82,000 on which registrations quietly lapsed.
Turners marketing general manager Todd Hunter said too many would have been left to rust in backyards or farm paddocks, posing an environmental and health hazard from leaking oil and general disintegration.
Mr Roberts said the aim of his company's initiative, for which Associate Transport Minister Judith Tizard will put the first vehicle under the hammer in Penrose this morning, was to make it easier for more private owners to cut their losses and "do the right thing" when their jalopies became too dirty or unsafe to keep running. "If you have smoke blowing out the back of your car, you know it is not good for the environment, but it is not good for your pocket either."
Turners was a public company which regarded itself as a leader in its field - "and leadership is a bit more than just selling more cars".
Mr Roberts said the scheme also supported a submission his company had made to officials advising the Government on tough new emissions standards for used vehicle imports.
Penrose damaged vehicle branch manager Paul Callister was reluctant to predict what range of prices could be expected by participants in the current scheme. "Scrap metal prices are rising, demand is outstripping supply, and there are a lot of [metal] exports to China."
Pointing to the most miserable looking burned-out specimen in his vast automotive funeral parlour, he estimated a scrap value of $50 to $150.
At the other extreme, Mr Hunter said a deregistered Lamborghini went under the hammer this month for $184,000 at a Turners auction.
