About two years ago, a ship carrying 4,703 shiny new Mazdas nearly
sank in the Pacific. The freighter, the Cougar Ace, spent weeks bobbing
on the high seas, listing at a severe 60-degree angle, before finally
being righted.
Although the cars remained safely strapped down throughout the ordeal the degree of damage could not be ascertained, especially given that the cars were dangling at a steep angle for a long period of time. Issues such as corrosive fluids seeping
into chambers where they don't belong, air-bag failing to fire properly due to overexposure of salty sea air, were of major concern. Incidentally, there were several takers for these vehicles, given that the price would be much lesser.
However, given the safety issues and also the possibility of potential scammers (as happened in the so-called "Katrina
cars" salvaged from New Orleans' flooding three years ago) Mazda decided to destroy $100 million worth of factory-new automobiles. However, even destroying them was not a simple matter and it took almost a year to devise a plan that almost was akin to a disassembly operation. The
city of Portland wanted assurance that nearly 5,000 cars' worth of
antifreeze, brake fluid and other hazardous goop wasn't mishandled.
Insurers covering Mazda's losses wanted to be sure the company wouldn't
resell any cars or parts — thereby profiting on the side. So every
steel-alloy wheel has to be sliced, every battery rendered inoperable,
and every tire damaged beyond repair. All CD players must get smashed.
Most of the cars have six airbags, and discharging them individually
(forcing them to inflate so they can't be resold) takes about five
minutes apiece — or a total of a half-hour per car. So engineers back
at Mazda's headquarters, in Hiroshima, fashioned a device that can
discharge all six at once. Multiplied by 4,703 cars, that trick alone
saved months of work.
The overall process of destroying the cars begins when longshoremen take the cars from the freighter and drive them to a
nearby lot where the airbags get destroyed. A forklift next piles the cars onto trailers for a brief ride to
Pacific Car Crushing. There it takes about 45 minutes to prepare each
Mazda for flattening. Steel-alloy wheels are sliced with high-power
saws to make sure they won't be resold. Holes are drilled into every
tire. The cars get placed into a crusher that applies 25,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, flattening them into colorful slabs. Next, they were moved to Schnitzer Steel, a salvage yard down on the waterfront
that's home to an immense metal grinder. "You turn 7,000-horsepower
hammers loose on them, and they're eaten in 10 seconds," says Jamie
Wilson, Schnitzer's manager. The freighter takes the scrap back to Asia where it will get
recycled.
Source: Millman, J. "A Crushing Issue: How to Destroy Brand-New Cars." Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2008.