So, Friday and Saturday, a friend and I went to a couple of pull&pay places for some parts. She needs to replace a whole bunch of front-end body panel stuff on a Subaru, and, well, I have tools she doesn't have, and an XJ that needs a few little things.

At both yards, we got a pretty good look at their available XJs, and I noticed a very weird, very specific trend. Every XJ that had intact rear lights was missing the driver's side light.

Every Grand Cherokee that had a center console had it halfway removed, usually hung up on the shifter, but that's less weird. That's not really an unusual pattern so much as 'someone didn't prepare'.

Do people tend to break the driver's side rear light more than the passenger side?

Has anyone here ever gone to pull parts and noticed a really weird pattern of specific things missing?

 

I know every Lebaron I find is missing it's hood vents

 

Yeah people tend to always take the parts that break on these vehicles the most often.

 

I think it's odd that Im typically the only pale dude at the yard... and that the guy who works there always asks me if I want someone else to uninstall the part for me.

I could understand if I came with a big list of things, but most often I tell them I'm looking for something simple like... Shifter bezel... Seat, driver tail lamp, etc.

 

I must be the exception; my passenger tail light is broke. That's why I'm not in a hurry to get to the junk yard, there will be lots of them to choose from!

Maybe it is a regional thing, but the junk yards in my area hardly ever get XJ's. I've checked a few times and I have never gotten lucky. The guys that work there say they hardly see them, and if they do, they're picked apart fast.

 

Down here along the Gulf Coast there are plenty of XJs, but they're almost always 2WD. It's next to impossible to find a front axle.

One thing I had a hard time finding was a battery tie-down bar. I had a shop swap in my stroker, and they forgot to reinstall the bar that holds the battery down. They couldn't find it when I went back looking for it.

I figured it would be an easy find at the junk yard, but apparently when they pull the batteries out they throw those bars into the scrap bin. After several months I had pretty much given up looking, when one day there was one just sitting on top of the valve cover of a 2WD XJ in the yard.

What I think is strange is that I have NEVER seen a Wrangler at a self-service yard. Where do they go when they die?

 

One more weird--actually, upsetting--thing about every XJ [and quite a few other SUVs, except for Grand Cherokees, for some reason]: they had their rear wipers ripped off. Not removed. It looked like someone just went through with a barrow, grabbing each one, pulled, and took them wherever they happened to break.

extrashaky: That's what was bugging me about that part of the lot. I knew something was missing--it was the Wranglers. There weren't any at either yard we went to. We have so many out here. They must die eventually.

aflemke: Same here. Not so broken that I had to do the ugly thing with the tape, but there's a small hole, and it was bugging me. Now I have a nearly pristine [seriously, this thing is beautiful] passenger light...and no matching driver-side. Gonna have to give that one an extra-good buffing or something, even though the rest of my XJ is ugly.

Snajo: I forgot my sunscreen. Got my first sunburn of the year.

I will admit that I was surprised to run into two other females there. I figured my friend and I would be the only ones. Only one of them was dressed appropriately and looked like she was there for herself. The other was nagging this poor guy, and got mad at me for getting in the way while I was having a hard time managing a hood.

 

As long as we're telling junk yard stories...

I had a broken passenger tail light, and of course when you need a part, that's the part that's missing from every Jeep you find. I finally found one, but someone had removed the struts from the rear hatch, and those steel hatches on the 97+ are heavy.

As I was looking around for something to use to prop it open, a little Mexican guy bolted out from under a minivan nearby and ran about 20 feet from it. He looked over at me and said something I didn't understand. Then he made a waving motion with his hand to signal the international hand gesture for "snake." I walked over there to see, but I couldn't find it. I was getting a good laugh at this guy being so afraid of what was probably just a rat snake.

So I went back to the Jeep, but I couldn't find anything to prop the hatch up. I was getting impatient, so I just stood there holding it up with my head, neck muscles cramping, while I loosened the bolts on that tail light. It wasn't pleasant.

Finally I got the bolts out and pulled the housing out to remove the wires and found myself staring right into the eyes of three wasps on a nest inside the housing. There was a moment where the four of us contemplated each other. Then the wasps and I moved at the same moment, me struggling with the conflicting urges to drop that hatch and run (which would have smashed the loose housing) or let the hatch down easy. I somehow managed not to smash the housing and get away without being stung, and I ran at least 20 yards away.

I looked over and saw the little Mexican dude still standing in the same spot, laughing his *** off at the crazy gringo flailing his arms. Karma.

I was still determined to get that housing. I found a piece of plastic trim and managed to swat one of the wasps right out of the air. The other two were hovering right over the lamp. I swatted at the second one and managed to catch the edge of one of the tabs, which broke right off and ruined the housing. After all that, I could have just let that stupid hatch drop.

Luckily I found another one on a subsequent visit with no neck strain, snakes or wasps.

 

I'm fine with this, if it's okay. Junkyard stories, I mean. It'll teach me what to expect and help me prepare for the next trip.

Because of course there's going to be a next trip.

 

That's like when wife asks me when I'm going to be done with the Jeep. When I destroy it, get another, sale it, or die.

 

Only reason i can think of for the consoles is they are looking for lose change or maybe lost jewelry.I took the console out of a 300m i had and found a smashed up horse from a charm bracelet close to the shifter.