Rank • Flip • Profit
Rank • Flip • Profit
The posted part price is only the first of five numbers on a Pick Your Part counter ticket. Learn how admission, core charges, environmental fees, the 30% Worry-Free Guarantee, and sales tax stack — and how to compute your true out-the-door cost before you pull.
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By RowGold · Reviewed October 5, 2026
Walk into an LKQ Pick Your Part with the posted part price in your head and you will consistently underestimate what the part costs you. The counter ticket stacks five numbers: admission (paid at the gate), the posted part price, the core charge, environmental and service fees, and sales tax. Miss any one and your flip math is wrong before the part is even in your hands.
This guide walks the full ticket, line by line: what each charge is, which ones flippers consistently misjudge, how the optional 90-day Worry-Free Guarantee changes the math, and how to compute a true out-the-door cost you can plug into your net calculation. For the other major self-service chain's very different pricing model, see our guide to Pull-A-Part pricing. For turning out-the-door cost into a list price, see how to price used OEM car parts.
Pick Your Part charges a flat admission fee per visit, paid at the gate before you enter the yard. It is the same whether you pull one part or twenty, which makes it a fixed cost to spread across the trip — not a per-part cost to ignore.
A single-part trip carries the whole admission fee on one part's margin. A ten-part trip spreads it thin. This is why pull lists matter: every additional profitable part you pull on the same visit dilutes the admission cost per part. Build the trip around a ranked list — our guide to flipping junkyard parts for profit covers the process — and assign each part its share of admission when you run the net.
Admission fees vary by location and can change. Confirm the current fee before trip day; never carry last year's number into this year's math. In the worked examples below, admission appears as an illustrative per-part share — substitute your location's actual fee divided by your planned pull count.
The part price is the number on the yard's posted price list for that part category. It is set by the location, not negotiated at the counter, and it is the same for every customer that day. Two things about it matter for flippers.
Unlike some chains with a single national list, Pick Your Part pricing is set per location — the same alternator can carry a different posted price at different stores, and lists are updated periodically. Always work from the current posted list at the store you're visiting, not from memory of another store or another year.
The posted part price is also the base for the optional Worry-Free Guarantee (30% of the part price, covered below). A higher posted price means a proportionally more expensive guarantee — which matters when you're deciding whether the guarantee earns its keep.
Many parts — alternators, starters, calipers, compressors, steering racks — carry a core charge: a deposit the yard collects against you returning the old, rebuildable core. Return a good core later, get the deposit back. That's the theory. Here's the flipper's reality.
You are not replacing the part on your own car — you have no failed core to hand back. There is nothing to return, so the deposit never comes back. For flip math, the core charge is not a deposit; it is part of the purchase price. Add it to your out-the-door cost in full, every time.
The core mistake: pricing a flip off the posted part price while the core sits on the ticket uncounted. On parts with heavy cores, that single omission can erase the entire modeled margin. If the ticket says core, the core is in your cost — no exceptions.
On top of part price and core, the ticket carries environmental and service fees — per-part or per-ticket charges covering fluid handling, disposal, and yard operations. They are small individually and material in aggregate, and they are the line most often left out of back-of-the-envelope math.
Fees live on a separate schedule from part prices at many locations. When you photograph the price list on arrival — which you should, every visit — photograph the fee schedule too. In worked math below, fees appear as an illustrative per-part figure; substitute your location's actual schedule.
Sales tax is charged on the taxable portion of the ticket at the counter, on top of everything above. Rates vary by location — the examples in this guide use a 9% rate purely as a worked example so the arithmetic is visible. Use your location's actual rate in your own math.
At checkout, Pick Your Part offers an optional 90-day Worry-Free Guarantee: pay 30% of the part's price, and you can return the part within 90 days for a refund, for any reason, with the receipt. It is insurance against two distinct risks: the part being bad (untested electronics, a cracked casting you missed) and the part not selling (a slow mover you want an exit ramp on).
The guarantee's value is its breadth: you don't have to prove a defect. Changed your mind, found a better donor, the listing sat for two months — with the receipt inside 90 days, the part goes back and the money comes back. Keep the receipt; without it, the guarantee doesn't exist.
The guarantee is worth buying when the expected value of the refund right exceeds its cost. In plain terms:
The guarantee is never free money — it raises your all-in cost on every part you buy it for. The discipline is deciding per part, at the counter, before the ticket prints. For how velocity should drive listing decisions generally, see our guide to the best junkyard parts to sell on eBay.
Blunt version: buying the guarantee on everything is a 30% tax on your cost basis. Declining it on everything leaves you holding dead stock with no exit. The money is in the per-part decision — slow or uncertain gets the guarantee, fast and tested doesn't.
Five lines, one number. Run it before you pull, not after.
Out-the-door = (part price + core + fees + guarantee? + admission share) × (1 + tax rate)
Core is sunk for flippers — always included. Guarantee is 30% of the part price, included only when you take it. Admission share = gate fee ÷ planned pulls. Tax rate is your location's actual rate; 9% is used in examples below purely as a worked example.
One alternator, every ticket line shown, then the flip net. Every figure below is illustrative — a teaching example using representative numbers, not any store's actual prices. Substitute your location's posted prices, fees, and tax rate.
| Ticket line | Illustrative figure |
|---|---|
| Posted part price (alternator) | $45.00 |
| Core charge (sunk — no core to return) | $10.00 |
| Environmental / service fees | $3.00 |
| Admission share (illustrative) | $2.00 |
| Subtotal | $60.00 |
| Sales tax (9% worked example) | $5.40 |
| Out-the-door (no guarantee) | $65.40 |
| Worry-Free Guarantee (30% of $45, if taken) | +$13.50 |
| Out-the-door (with guarantee) | $78.90 |
Illustrative sold comp: $129.99. eBay fee basis: 13.6% + $0.40 per order (Motors Parts & Accessories, no store — per eBay's fee page, checked Oct 4, 2026).
| Line | Illustrative figure |
|---|---|
| Sale price | $129.99 |
| eBay fee (13.6%) | −$17.68 |
| Per-order fee | −$0.40 |
| Yard outlay (no guarantee) | −$65.40 |
| Shipping | Buyer-paid |
| Modeled net (no guarantee) | $46.51 |
| Modeled net (with guarantee, $78.90 outlay) | $33.01 |
Illustrative example — teaching figures only, not a promise of results. The guarantee costs $13.50 of modeled margin here; whether that's worth it depends on the part's velocity and your uncertainty, per the decision rule above.
The most common error: running flip math on the posted price and meeting tax for the first time at the register. On a multi-part ticket, tax is a real percentage of a real number — build it into the out-the-door formula from the start.
Second most common: treating the core as "not really cost" because it's called a deposit. For a flipper it is cost. Price it in or watch margins evaporate on every core-bearing part.
Blanket-buying the guarantee is a 30% surcharge on your cost basis across the board. Blanket-declining leaves no exit ramp on the slow movers that need one. The per-part decision is the whole game.
Pick Your Part prices are set per location and updated over time. The alternator price you memorized two years ago at a different store is not today's number. Photograph the current list every visit.
Driving out for one part loads the entire admission fee onto one margin. Unless the part's modeled net absorbs it comfortably, batch pulls or skip the trip. The pull list is the admission antidote.
Out-the-door cost is the cost line in every net calculation you'll ever run — it sets Best Offer floors, kill criteria, and trip planning. Get it right once per location and it becomes a constant you plug in everywhere. The full method for turning it into list prices and offer floors is in how to price used OEM car parts, and the scoring method that automates it is at How RowGold Scores Opportunities.
Admission is a flat per-visit fee paid at the gate, and the amount varies by location and can change over time. Confirm the current fee at your location before trip day. Because it's flat, amortize it across your pull list — a ten-part trip spreads the fee thin, while a single-part trip loads it all onto one margin.
A core charge is a deposit collected against you returning the old, rebuildable core — the failed alternator, starter, or caliper the rebuilder wants back. For a flipper, who has no failed core to return, the deposit never comes back: treat the full core amount as part of your purchase cost, not as a refundable deposit.
The guarantee costs 30% of the part's posted price, paid at checkout. Within 90 days, you can return the part for a refund for any reason — defect, changed plans, or a listing that never sold — as long as you have the receipt. Keep the receipt; without it the guarantee doesn't exist.
Decide per part. Keep it on slow or uncertain-velocity parts and untested electronics, where the chance of wanting the money back is meaningful enough that the expected refund value exceeds the 30% cost. Decline it on fast-moving, tested, simple parts where the failure or return chance is tiny. Buying it on everything is a 30% surcharge on your cost basis; declining it on everything leaves no exit ramp on the parts that need one.
Yes — sales tax is added at the counter on top of the posted prices, core charges, and fees. The rate depends on the store's location. Build it into your out-the-door formula from the start rather than meeting it for the first time at the register.
No. Part prices are set per location on a posted price list and are the same for every customer that day. Your leverage isn't negotiation — it's accurate out-the-door math and choosing which parts clear your margin bar.
Add the posted part price, the core charge (sunk for flippers), environmental and service fees, your share of admission (gate fee divided by planned pulls), and the guarantee cost if you're taking it — then apply your location's sales tax rate. That total is the cost line for your net calculation: sale price minus the 13.6% eBay fee, minus $0.40 per order, minus out-the-door cost, minus shipping you pay.
Yes — it raises your all-in cost, so re-run the net with and without it. A part with a thin modeled margin can flip from viable to not-viable once the 30% guarantee is added. That's the point of the per-part decision: the guarantee is worth buying only when the protection it buys is worth more than the margin it costs.
Out-the-door cost is one input in the full flip: research the donor, validate demand, confirm fitment, price from sold evidence, move inventory fast. The complete process is in our guide to flipping junkyard parts for profit, and the chain comparison continues in our guide to Pull-A-Part pricing.
Last reviewed: October 5, 2026. Fee, tax, and yard-price figures are dated in the text and worked-example numbers are illustrative — verify current figures before relying on them.
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