Congratulations to Helen Davison!

The judges had a tough time trying to decide which entry should win. There were so many entertaining, clever, and factual essays, stories and poems that trying to put just one entry on the winner’s podium was a tough call in deed.

In the end the judges were unanimous in having Helen Davison of Wantage announced the winner. The judges thought that she got across a lot of good points in a very enjoyable way considering the word limit.

The judges thought that the overall standard was high. Thank you to all of you who entered. It was obvious a lot of time, skill, and research had gone in to the entries. It is a truism in life that there can only be one winner; however, the entries were so good that 1^st Choice Spares will publish some of them online as articles over the next few weeks.

The competition was such a success that 1^st Choice Spares is going to announce a new competition next week. So check back here or to our Facebook page next week for details. If you have a preference or idea for a future competition, why not let us know on Facebook? It just needs to have a “car parts” theme.

Here is Helen’s winning entry:

“Why should people use recycled car parts?

If you had the choice why would you pay full price for a new part when a perfectly serviceable second-hand part or “recycled” part would do the job? Recycling car parts is a brilliant way to save money and the environment. The part I was searching for cost £800 new or recycled ranged from £40-£315.

 By using the internet to source recycled car parts they can be delivered to your door from breakers from a wide area, thus saving multiple phone calls, time and travel. It is so easy to use the internet to find recycled car parts, usually you put in your car reg and the part you require and within minutes breakers will email or text with prices including warranty and postage. Once you have all the offers you can compare, in your own time, which supplier has the best deal to suit you.  Recycled car parts are usually genuine parts which can be difficult to obtain new for older cars.

Car parts need to be recycled as it is such a waste just to scrap vehicles when there are perfectly serviceable parts available, this also generates jobs for breakers.

 Using recycled car parts is such an obvious choice to help the environment, as the part has already been manufactured thus not only reducing its carbon footprint but saving the planets resources.

I am lucky that I live within walking distance of a scrap yard, where you can go armed with all your tools and try to rescue spare parts, it’s great fun searching through all the cars, it’s amazing what you find in glove compartments and in-between seats. Being a female there is always plenty of help and advice around but it does surprise a lot of the men when they see a middle aged women clambering in and out of the cars looking for spare parts.  It’s quite a social event on a Sunday all these people with tool kits dismantling cars and as an added bonus a burger and a coffee at the end.

Well done, Helen. You are a double winner as you already use recycled parts!