When you are restoring an old car or just fixing your current vehicle, auto parts can be pricey. There are ways to get parts for cheap, and one of those ways is through a salvage yard. There is a long list of auto parts to avoid and a longer list of auto parts that are worth the hunt when you want to get them from a salvage yard. Here are the best auto parts to find in these places. 

Car Panels and Replacement Doors

If the front end of a vehicle was damaged in a collision to the point where the car was no longer drivable, it ends up as salvage. However, the salvage yard will keep it to sell off parts from the back half of the vehicle, including doors and side panels, trunks and tires. Some doors and side panels for cars are very hard to find, especially for vintage/antique/classic cars, which makes these parts even more valuable when you find them in a salvage yard. There are some luxury vehicles where the side panels and doors are valued at tens of thousands of dollars to replace, but if you can find them at a salvage yard, then you will spend thousands less to purchase them. 

Windshields

The average cost of most replacement windshields is a couple of hundred bucks (although luxury cars have more expensive windshields). If you go to a salvage yard and ask for a replacement windshield for your vehicle, you will probably pay less than a hundred dollars; sometimes even less than fifty dollars, if you are really lucky. The labor to install it might be the same unless the salvage yard employees have somebody who can do that for you. Windshields tend to be rather common, which is why any surviving windshields at a salvage yard are low-priced to sell. 

Tires

A salvage yard cannot do anything with tires besides send them off to be burned or recycled; they mainly want the rims/wheels because the metal is recyclable. If and when you need a cheap tire or a cheap set of tires, they can be dirt cheap at a salvage yard. Then you just need someone to remove your old tires and put the "new" tires on your vehicle. If you are willing to change all four tires yourself, then you might get a whole new set of tires for less than a hundred bucks, and only the cost of your own sweat to install them.

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