Wandered into an old salvage yard in Ohio and noticed something weird

I stopped by this place called Rusty's Auto Parts outside Toledo last weekend looking for a door panel for my F-150. Every single car in the back lot had its fuses still in the boxes under the hood, even ones from the 80s. Has anyone else noticed certain yards leave electrical parts intact while others strip everything down to the bare frame?

3 comments

3 Comments

young.kim1mo ago

Honestly it's kind of like how some thrift stores leave the tags on clothes while others cut them all off. It's just a matter of how much effort they want to put into squeezing every last nickel out of stuff. Fuses are cheap and annoying to pull, so they're just not worth the hassle.

michael_jenkins391mo ago

Yeah that's actually pretty common with the older mom and pop yards. I had the same thing happen at a place in Indiana, every fuse and relay was still in the boxes on a 92 Bronco I pulled parts from. They told me most people walking through don't care about fuses and it's not worth their time to pull them out for $2 a pop. Plus if a car has been sitting for years with the hood open, the fuse box gets all corroded anyway. I grabbed a handful of spares from that Bronco and they worked fine for my truck's trailer lights. So I'd say if you see a yard that still has fuses in place, it usually means the owner is lazy about stripping stuff or they just don't think those parts are worth the effort.

the_diana1mo ago

I remember pulling a dash out of a 99 Explorer at a yard in Ohio a couple years back and finding the whole fuse panel in better shape than the one in my daily driver. Thing is, most of those older mom and pop places don't even bother labeling the boxes either so you gotta bring your own diagram if you're digging for something specific. But honestly I think the real reason they leave them in is because pulling 30 little plastic fuses one by one is tedious and cuts into their time stripping bigger stuff like alternators and interior parts. Plus it's not like those mini fuses are hard to find at any auto parts store for cheap so it's just not a priority for them.