Vehicle salvage business gives JCB a lift

Copart using one of the JCB machines

A salvage and vehicle auction business that runs one of the biggest fleets of JCB wheeled loaders in the world has again turned to the Staffordshire manufacturer to boost its operation.

Copart UK, based in Bedfordshire, already has 64 JCB wheeled loaders across its 15 UK locations. Now the company has ordered a further six new generation 417 models from JCB dealer Watling JCB in Leicestershire.

The machines are all manufactured at JCB Earthmovers in Cheadle, and are powered by JCB EcoMAX engines made at JCB Power Systems in Foston, Derbyshire.

Founded in California in 1982, Copart sells vehicles for a variety of customers including finance companies, banks, dealers, fleets, rental car companies and the insurance industry. The company has over 160 locations throughout the world and arrived in the UK ten years ago.

The loaders have a four metre long fork attachment, allowing Copart operators to lift and move the damaged cars around its sites.

Fred Houghton, Transport Operations Manager at Copart said: “We have been using JCB wheeled loaders since 2009 and are very pleased with what they do. They are very cost effective to run, make our job a lot easier, save a lot of time and reduce the risk of damaging the cars.”

Copart’s 30-acre show site in Sandy, which is closest to the company’s head office near Bedford, operates six JCB wheeled loaders. When badly damaged salvage vehicles arrive at the site on delivery trucks, they are unloaded by the wheeled loaders and checked to see if any work is necessary. They are then put away into the storage rows in the yard by the loaders and not moved again until they are sold.

After the auction, the loaders are used to pick up the badly damaged cars from the rows and transport them to the loading area, where they are placed on the delivery vehicles.

Close