Workers at salvage yards have only six months to retrieve useful parts from the clunkers.

Clunker crush time means crunch time for some in the auto salvage yard business.

Now that the Cash for Clunkers program has ended, workers at salvage yards have only six months to retrieve useful parts from the clunkers.

After that, the cars have to be crushed.

Dan Snyder is the owner of Snyder Recycled Auto and Truck Parts.

He said he is salvaging what he can from the clunkers he has coming into his lot.

"I would say about five percent or so of the vehicles we got are good-part vehicles," Snyder said.

Even if there are some salvageable pieces, Snyder said there's not much time to sell them.

		WATCH THE VIDEO
	Cash for Clunkers News 8’s Bonnie Gonzalez has more on how some in the auto salvage business are hurrying to process and sell parts from the clunkers they received during the Cash for Clunkers program.

"A lot of these parts are not going to be able to be sold within six months. So what's going to happen is these parts are going to end up in the crusher when they should be recycled and put back on the road," he said.

Snyder said the six month time frame is part of the rules set for the Cash for Clunkers program by the U.S. Department of Justice.

"The reason they put a time limit on it is because they wanted to be able to call this program done over and finished in six months," he said.

As if the time crunch isn't enough to worry about, add in the sheer number of clunkers that still need to be processed.

"I think they estimated 700,000 vehicles on dealership lots and now those dealerships are needing those vehicles moved as quickly as we can," Snyder said.

Some dealerships like Garlyn Shelton Nissan in Temple were able to get rid of the cars right away.

"We took the government at their word. We went ahead and right away dismantled the engines and got a hold of Snyder's and they picked them up pretty promptly," General Sales Manager at Garlyn Shelton, Ronnie Collins said.

Since other dealerships feared not getting their payment, Garlyn Shelton didn't release their cars until they got paid.

	After the six months is up, the clunkers have to be crushed.

"The government held checks for quite a while and then all of a sudden start cutting them loose after all the media that was produced with lack of payment. So it did cause quite a back log for the salvage industry for sure," Collins said.

Snyder said there are groups lobbying to extend the six month time frame.