Clunkers’ afterlife

In this dusty lot west of Boston, as in hundreds of other junkyards throughout the country, it is the literal end of the road for scores of bygone cars, trucks, and sport utility vehicles.

It is also the beginning of a lesser-known phase of the $3 billion cash for clunkers program, which ended last week with nearly 700,000 gas guzzlers traded nationwide for more fuel-efficient vehicles. It is the dawn of the clunkers’ afterlife, particularly for their components and frames, which have begun flooding the used parts and scrap-recycling markets with more than 100 million tons of steel, batteries, and tires, among other things.

“This is like a second wave of stimulus to our economy,’’ said Bill Goodale, general manager of Millis Industries, which has picked up about 200 clunkers from local dealers and expects to take possession of hundreds more in the next few weeks. “As it trickles down, it helps junkyards. It helps the guy looking for cheap parts to keep his car going. It adds a lot of steel to a market that hasn’t produced much of it in the last year.’’

For many hoping to profit off the clunkers’ remains, their work begins by collecting them from dealers, many of which are holding the jalopies until the federal government sends their checks for as much as $4,500 per vehicle. An overload of paperwork and the large number of cars sold have delayed the government’s reimbursement plan, but officials at the US Department of Transportation said the 21,118 participating dealers will be paid within the next few weeks.

For local dealers such as Ernie Boch Jr., who owns seven dealerships and has been a source of cars to junkyards such as Millis Industries, the backlog has meant rows of clunkers parked in what has become a kind of used car purgatory in his back lots. In one lot behind his Norwood Toyota dealership, dozens of Ford Explorers, Dodge minivans, Jeep Cherokees, and other gas guzzlers are collecting dust with “Clunker’’ spray-painted on the back or front windshields.

“I’m owed over $2 million, but it’s not panic time,’’ said Boch, who sold nearly 800 cars through the program. “I’m confident we’ll get paid.’’

Boch is holding the remaining clunkers in a form of escrow, but like other dealers, before the government’s payment backlog became apparent, he sold many of the old cars to junkyards for $50 to $600.

For Goodale, the clunkers make a reasonable investment, and he hopes to earn at least double the price he pays for each of the vehicles, many of which are in better condition than the usual cars delivered to his junkyard.

His participation in the program began several weeks ago, when his company signed contracts with several area dealers and received US Department of Transportation approval to take the clunkers.

The work requires a lot of manpower. He sends his employees to pick up the cars on large trucks and haul them to Millis, where they begin stripping the vehicles. They remove the tires, batteries, alternators, starters, doors, radios, switches - anything that might sell. They even drain the remaining gas, antifreeze, and windshield wiper fluid for resale.

“We look for anything we can salvage,’’ Goodale said. “That’s the only way it’s worth the investment.’’

The part they cannot sell - the most valuable one - is the engine, which either they or the dealer must flood with sodium silicate, the liquid glass, and affix a tag that certifies that it has “significant internal damage’’ as a result of participating in the federal program.

The government wants the engines destroyed to keep gas guzzlers off the road, but junkyard dealers have complained that the program is denting their profit potential.

“Without the engine - the number one seller - you have to sell a lot more parts,’’ said Michael E. Wilson, executive vice president of the Automotive Recyclers Association, a Virginia-based group that represents 4,500 junkyards nationwide. “It costs us between $700 and $1,200 to process a vehicle, which includes the costs of towing, depolluting, pulling off parts, inventorying them, putting them in a warehouse, and then crushing and transporting what’s left.’’

But for Goodale, it still makes financial sense to fill his lot with clunkers.

In the last few weeks, his warehouse in Millis has been filled with used but roadworthy tires, which he sells for $200 for a set of four; jugs of antifreeze, which go for $2 a gallon; and batteries, for which he gets $20. Bigger ticket items include alternators and starters, which he sells for up to $100 apiece; doors, which can earn him $300; and transmissions, which sell for $250 to $1,000.

Whatever he cannot sell, he sends to the crusher, a massive machine that pancakes the vehicles. He fits about 18 of the flattened remnants into a trailer and hauls them to Schnitzer Steel Industries in Everett, a large metal recycler and another company that expects to profit from the clunker program.

There, the remains of the vehicles pass through a radiation detector, are weighed, and are dumped in vast piles, where they mix with discarded dishwashers, washing machines, and every other appliance imaginable. Large cranes with steel claws drop the vehicles and the other refuse on a conveyor belt, where giant blades shred them into fist-sized nuggets of steel. Each car yields more than a ton of steel, which is shipped to anywhere in the world for about $250 a ton.

Some metal recyclers worry that the infusion of scrap will depress the price of steel. The price per ton is up from a recent low of $100 in November but still down from a record $523 in July 2008, according to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries in Washington, D.C.

But officials at Schnitzer are not worried. They see the clunker remains as part of a rising supply that will fill the demand in improving economies worldwide.

“We only see a positive effect from the clunkers,’’ said Tom Zelenka, a spokesman for Schnitzer, which recycles millions of tons of steel a year. “We need the material, and it’s coming at an important time.’’

David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com.