another wheelweight horror story

[truckmsl]

Not trying to promote the sky is falling mentality regarding the availability of lead, but felt I had the share this: I bought a set of tires from Les Schwab today and thought since I was spending some money I'd hit them up for some wheel weights. The guy says sure, he'll sell me wheel weights and they're $18 a bucket. I said great I'll take a bucket so he walks me out and points to a 1 gallon bucket! I told him I usually pay that for a 5 gallon bucket full and he says that the battery recycler pays him $18 per gallon. I passed on the 1 gallon bucket wondering if the recyclers are really paying that much. I sure hope not.

[mooman76]

He has to be mistaken. The salvage yards arent paying that much for lead. On the brighter side if there is one with all the call for lead and the prices going up , maybe some of the lead mines that have shut down will start back up and push prices back down some!

[shotstring]

Are you sure that is a 1 gallon bucket? I buy from Les Schwab here because it is a small town and I have to drive a long way to the next source of lead - over 50 miles round trip - so it is still cheaper to pay their price rather than pay gas prices. But I pay $20 for a 2 1/2 gal bucket. I would think most/all of the Les Schwab stores deal with the same recycling company as that is the company that supplies them with their entire line of car and truck batteries.

[truckmsl]

shotstring - I don't think it was 2.5 gallons. I just paid $35 for a 5 gallon bucket filled to the brim at a different shop, and it sure looked like it was more than twice the size of the Schwab bucket. I guess I can live with $35 for a five gallon, although that even seems high compared to what I was paying a short while ago. Sure is a lot of hype out ther right now, didn't mean to add to it.

[Typecaster]

Don't know where you're at, but here in Southern California the recycler will PAY 8 cents/lb for WWs; and SELL them for 30 cents/lb. Worked for me when I was in acquisition mode...tire stores—large or small—seem to be a historic source.

[mtgrs737]

I bought a heaping bucket from a tire shop this summer and they said they would save me another bucket but when I called to check on them they now wanted $75. I passed on the second bucket, and to think I thru in a six pack of beer on ice on first buy. Also this summer I bought a pair of truck tires at a small shop and noticed they had two full buckets of WW so I bought them also for $45 for both, and they promised to save for me another couple of buckets that would take 90 days or so. I waited and went back to collect the next two buckets only to learn that they had discovered the "Re-cycler" no lead as promised. That is two out of three shops that have broken their promises and dumped on me in 90 days, neither shop will ever sell me another tire!

[Trez Hensley]

Up here in my area, the scrap yards are paying 20c/lb for hard lead and 40c/lb for soft and selling it at 65c for hard and 75c for soft lead. Even at this higher price, I haven't had a single time in there that someone has not gotten there before I did and I have gone several times now. This is a major scrap yard to boot.

There is a guy in this area that makes fishing weights commercially and buys scrap as fast as they get it. They say that he stops by every day. The last time I was in there, they said that that morning they had about a ton of lead alloy but that this fellow had bought all of it. He hadn't picked it up yet but it was spoken for. This price is for scrap not smelted alloy..........:-x

I have had to be creative to get the stash that I have. I can't hardly buy wheel weights. The same guy hits up most of the local shops. It's hard to believe that he is using this much lead. Granted there are other people around buying it but this guy is making all of us scramble to scrounge up what we can get. You would think that he wouldn't have enough time to use it all up with all the time he spends scrounging. He seems to not have tapped into the roofers and old print shops yet so I am getting better alloy for the same price now that I have been forced to look else where. Not cheap but not quite up to the E-bay prices yet.
:roll::roll::roll:

[Blackhawk Convertable]

The Local Recyclers around here are paying $.40 a lb. for WW's right now. I stopped at 5-6 places the other day and most had already gotten rid of theirs. One place did give me his small bucket of 30#. At another place, a major tire dealer, I was able to buy a bucket for that same $.40 a lb. So yesterday I had 153 lbs. of WW's that, after I removed all the stick-ons, I rendered down to 122 lbs. of nice round ingots.

[kywoodwrkr]

I went out Friday stopping at a few tire stores I had not visited before.
First one said that his WW supplier pays him $15 per 50# of old weights.
That equates to about $45 per 5 gallon bucket.
Better than one store who said his battery supplier didn't charge him very much to get rid of them! :confused: How do you spell DUMB?
Yet another store had a similar story, only battery supplier was buying them.He did indicate he would give me preference, but I have to call back next week to see what he has if any.
My old standby of three buckets every 8 weeks came through however for $15/5 gallon bucket. Lot of paper etc but $15 is really okay! :mrgreen:
Went to my secondary tire store and got a very large 5 gallon bucket full for a 40 pack and an 18 pack of Bud Light.
About $30 but very clean-nothing else in with them.
Today I endeavor to get caught up on some smelting and other things that have been sidelined in this area for a few weeks due to business start up headaches.
Truck tire store I get 5 gallon buckets from run about $25 and BIG weights.
Have about 50 gallon stacked up to do! Hopefully about 1200 lbs of WW.
Now to buy propane!
DaveP kywoodwrkr

[smkummer]

I have a nephew that works for a Ford dealer and I swap him either ammo or bullets. He states its harder and harder to get real lead. He is grabbing all he can. I am good for now and maybe good enough to last this shortage we are in. look what has ahappen to shot prices!