Digging for deals
Car enthusiasts search for needed parts amid junked vehicles at site’s first event since pandemic shutdown
Saturday was abuzz with activity at Pickers Self Service Auto Parts.
An associated business with TriState Iron and Metal, Pickers Self Service Auto Parts features a large car lot with a variety of vehicles awaiting parts hunters to find what they need. The parts hunters were participating in the Pull-A-Thon, where they paid $50 to load up on auto parts.
“All you can carry” was the rule. Each component, if you could walk 20 feet with it, was yours.
The crowds descended upon the lot and spent all day looking for things they needed, or wanted.
“Our lot is organized to make finding what they need easy,” said Jaclyn Szydelko, manager of Pickers. “Makes and models and everything
we have here is cataloged. We can tell you where you can find what you are looking for, if we have it. Then you go out into the yard and get it.”
Szydelko described a line going down Ninth Street as parts hunters waited for the lot to open.
“We were deemed an essential business during the shutdown — salvage and recycling,” she said. “But due to social distancing rules, we stopped having our pull events. This Saturday’s event was the first since the shutdown began lifting. So parts hunters were ready to hunt.”
Delectable Delights, an eatery from Domino, Texas, provided turkey legs and other sustenance for the hunters. And a few of them, described as hearty, corn-fed boys, put on shows seeing the heaviest part they could carry the 20 feet.
“We had a few who managed to manhandle some engine blocks and transmissions,. It was something,” Szydelko said.
That video footage can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/ PickersTXK/?epa=SEARCH_BOX
Szydelko said there are a wide variety of customers who come to Pickers.
“We have single moms who can’t afford repairs and come looking for the parts they need,” she said. “We have auto hobbyists and car enthusiasts. We even get local dealerships and garages looking for something they don’t have in stock.”
Vehicles are generally there 90 to 120 days, depending on demand and other factors.
“They are picked as clean as can be. We prefer everything being taken that can still be used,” she said. “Once that is done, what is left will go to the shredder for recycling, or as we say, they go to glory.”
Occasionally, they will get something interesting or exotic. Now and then something will draw the eye of someone who works there at Pickers.
“Everyone who works here knows cars and the market. And most of us love cars. Every now and then, something arrives that one of us falls in love with. All of us have adopted a few of these vehicles and given them a home,” she said.
“And of course, some things more in demand than others. For example, a Ford Taurus won’t get nearly the level of interest as, say, a Chevy truck.”