Are scrap car prices going up or down?

Both, depending on the window: as of July 2026 the BLS iron and steel scrap index is up about 11 percent over twelve months, while still 31 percent below its April 2022 peak. Junk-car offers track that market with local variation on top.

Should I wait to scrap my car until steel prices recover?

The index moves in multi-year cycles and the 2022 top was its second-highest reading in 79 years, so "waiting for the peak" means waiting on a market that may not return there. Meanwhile a parked car keeps costing registration, insurance or storage.

Updated August 25, 2026 · index through July 2026

Scrap steel prices, 1947–2026: the index under every junk-car offer

As of July 2026: +11% over the past year, 31% below the April 2022 top. If a dead car is waiting in your driveway for better prices, this is the chart it is waiting on.

Stack of crushed, flattened cars in a scrapyard under a pale sky with a crane arm overhead - the commodity end of every junk-car offer

Where the scrap market stands right now

+11.4%past 12 months
-31%vs the April 2022 peak
+42%vs the 2019 average
July 2026latest BLS reading

Two things are true at once as of July 2026, and both matter to anyone holding a dead car. Scrap steel is 11.4% higher than a year ago — the market has been recovering off its floor — and it still sits 31% below the April 2022 peak, with prices 42% above their pre-pandemic norm. In plain terms: better than last year, nothing like 2022, and comfortably above the old normal.

The market under the market

When a junk-car buyer names a price, the floor under it is set somewhere else entirely: in the scrap steel market, where a crushed car is so many hundredweight of shreddable metal. The public record of that market is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ producer price index for iron and steel scrap — series WPU1012, published monthly since 1947.

The full 79-year series. The 2022 spike and the long retreat after it are the recent story; the index is set to 100 at 1982.

The long cycle, and what it means for a car in the driveway

The peak was April 2022, at the top of the same supply squeeze that sent used-car prices to records — the second-highest reading in the series’ 79 years. For anyone holding a dead car “until prices come back,” the shape of the series is the real answer: it moves in cycles measured in years, this past year’s 11% rise is ordinary movement inside one, and a return to the 2022 top would need another once-in-decades squeeze. Meanwhile a parked shell pays storage, insurance or registration while it waits. The metal is also not the whole of a junk offer — parts, location and towing economics sit on top — but it is the part that moves, and the chart is what it has done.

What this index is, and is not

WPU1012 tracks prices received by U.S. producers for iron and steel scrap as a class — mill-gate economics, not the retail price a yard pays for one car, which runs lower and varies by region and processor. We publish no per-car dollar figures: what your car brings is a question for a real offer on the actual vehicle. What the index settles is the trend and the timing, and it does that with 79 years of public, reproducible data.

Methodology

One series as published: PPI commodity index WPU1012, iron and steel scrap, monthly, January 1947 through July 2026, fetched from the BLS public flat files on 2026-08-25. The peak-to-now figure is the ratio of two published index values. Public domain.

Sources

BLS Producer Price Index — commodity series WPU1012, iron and steel scrap, monthly since 1947
BLS public data files — fetched 2026-08-25; public domain

Citing this page. One published BLS index, 79 years of it; the peak-to-now figure is the ratio of two of its values. A suggested citation: “Scrap Steel Prices Since 1947,” Sell My Car Hub, sellmycarhub.com/guides/scrap-steel-price-history/, data as of 2026-08-25. The charts may be reproduced with a link to this page.