Bob, your partly correct, it's years and not miledge for the 'Sha-ken'. It's a Bi-Annual inspection.

But they are not all from wrecked cars. In fact a high percentage of them are simply from vehicles that are no longer cost effective (or much more frequently, assumed that it's costs are going to exceed it's value) to repair to their inspection standards and run.

But for wrecks, the standards for what gets 'written off' in japan vary vastly from what you'd expect here. Very very minor fender damage can lead to a 2 year old car ending up in the scrapper.

It's far more sociological than mechanical. I used to be in the buisness.

Paul