Are scrap car prices going up or down?

The public benchmark - the BLS iron and steel scrap index - peaked in April 2022 and sits about 31 percent lower as of July 2026. 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.

Data study · 79 years of BLS data

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

Scrap steel peaked in April 2022 and has given back 31% since. 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

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.

Down 31% from the peak

Scrap steel peaked in April 2022, at the top of the same supply squeeze that sent used-car prices to records. As of July 2026 the index sits 31% below that peak. For anyone holding a dead car “until prices recover,” the series is worth staring at: it moves in long cycles, the 2022 top was the second-highest reading in 79 years, and a parked shell does not appreciate while the market decides. 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 this is the direction it has moved.

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.