Finding used parts in the US and Canada: Car-Part.com and the interchange number

If you are repairing a US car, the part you need was almost certainly taken off another one, and there is a single search that covers most of the yards holding them.

What Car-Part.com is

It is a search over auto recyclers' own inventories, not a shop. You search, it shows you which yard has the part and what they want for it, and you deal with the yard. The site describes itself as a "Recycled Auto Parts Market" and claims "250 Million Car-Parts" across the recyclers that feed it — that is their own number, and we are quoting it as their claim rather than as a measurement.

Searching is free. There is a paid professional tier aimed at body shops, but a buyer looking for a part pays nothing to look.

Canada is covered properly, not as an afterthought. The region picker carries Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon, alongside the US states and Mexico. For anyone buying at IAA Canada or Copart Canada, that matters: you can look for a part in the same province the car is sitting in, which is the difference between a courier and a freight forwarder.

The site's own strapline is "Providing part fitment and interchangeability since 2000!", which is the thing that actually makes it useful and the thing most people never use.

The interchange number, which is the whole point

A recycler does not list a part against one car. They list it against an interchange number, which identifies every vehicle the same part was fitted to across model years, trims and sometimes across marques.

This is why it is worth learning: the alternator you need may be listed under a car you have never considered. A part search that only looks at your exact year and model is searching a fraction of the inventory that actually fits.

Two practical consequences:

• A wider interchange means more supply and a lower price. A part shared across six model years and two badges is a part somebody near you has.
• Interchange is not the same as "will bolt on". It is a recycler's fitment database, and it is very good, but the person answering the phone at the yard knows the exceptions and the database does not. On anything structural or electronic, ask.

Using it for a European import

Buy the parts while the car is still in America, if you can. The part travels in or with the car, in the same container, under the same freight, and it does not cross customs twice. Once the car is in Europe, a US-specific part is a separate international shipment with its own duty and VAT and its own two-to-six weeks.

Work out what you need before the car ships. That means the photos from the auction, the damage report and a list, not an intention. It is the single highest-leverage thing in a salvage import and it is the step people skip because the car has not arrived yet.

Check the part is not on the do-not-reuse list first. Six categories of part may not be fitted second-hand in the EU regardless of where you bought them — airbags and their control units, seat belt assemblies, seats with anchorages or bags, steering locks, immobilisers and most emission after-treatment. The list is in its own thread, quoted from the annex that sets it. Buying one of those in a US yard because it is cheap is buying something you cannot legally fit at the other end.

Some parts are worth buying new. Anything with a wear life measured in the repair — brake friction, filters, fluids, bushes — is not a recycled-part problem, and the freight on a used one usually exceeds the price of a new one locally.

What this thread does not cover

Which yards are good. That is local knowledge and it changes, and a list of recommendations from people who have not bought from them recently is worth nothing. If you have dealt with a yard in a state or province and it went well or badly, that is the reply this thread wants — with the state, the year, and what actually happened.

European sources are a separate thread, because the platforms, the law and the shipping are all different.

Sources

• Car-Part.com — recycled auto parts search (facts · 2026-09-22)

Verified 2026-09-22. Rates, fees and legal requirements change. Check the sources before acting on a number here.