NORFOLK, Va. - Walk into an automotive junkyard and you might expect to be greeted by a scruffy old man sitting next to mounds of parts guarded by a couple of vicious dogs. Walk into Norfolk Recycling Corp., an automotive salvage yard along U.S. 58 in Suffolk, Va., and you'll find vehicles neatly parked side by side. Inside the garage, parts are categorized and bar-coded for inventory control.

Each part is labeled with an internationally accepted damage code describing the accident and the damage suffered by the original vehicle. A nearby office is staffed with salespeople sitting at laptops selling parts all over the world.

Welcome to the new state of the auto recycling business, says S. Warren Richard Jr., president of Norfolk Recycling.

Sitting in his office on a recent spring day, Richard is tracking an online auto auction. On the screen, a Ford Ranger pickup truck with a rapidly escalating bid. "I lost a car Friday to Russia," says Richard, looking at the screen.

"The scale of the business we're in is an international now. I heard 46 percent of the cars going through the auctions are being exported. It's not Joe Smith down on the corner selling you a hubcap and buying a $50 car off the street."

Vehicles are bought for their scrap steel value, which has climbed in price from $2 per hundred pounds in the early 1990s to $10 today.

"Most of it is going overseas because the dollar is low," Richard said. "And export shipping rates are low compared to income because there are so many more imports coming into this country than exports."

Exacerbating the problem is the scarcity of vehicles.

"When I was a kid, we'd go down to North Carolina and there were junk cars laying everywhere. You don't see that anymore," said Richard, who travels as far as 200 miles to get a car or truck that he wants.

He deals mostly with vehicles newer than the 2000 model year. Key parts - such as engines, transmissions, body parts, computers and air bags - are pulled and cleaned. Suspension components are X-rayed to ensure the metal isn't stressed.

"Then, all of the fluids are recycled," he said. "We have receipts to show that they are taken away by licensed haulers or they're reused."

If you visit the yard and expect to pull a part from a vehicle yourself, you'll be surprised.

"We don't let people in the field here," Richard said. "In the old days, you had a bunch of junk cars lying out in the field. The guy could go out, look around and take what he wanted.

"That's fine if you're dealing with $50, $100, $200 cars. But we may spend $3,000, $4,000 or $5,000 on a wrecked vehicle. So we can't let someone who wants a $10 piece tear up a $200 component."

Then there's the problem of safety.

While you might expect technicians to receive special training to dismantle a hybrid car, even ordinary cars, which have as many as 15 computers, require care.

"I bought a 2007 Fusion," Richard said. "It was sitting here in the yard and, because of the way the computer controls and the air pollution controls are set up, we didn't disconnect one electrical current, and the thing caught on fire."

The increasing sophistication of cars and trucks is reflected in the salvage-yard business, said Sandy Blalock, president of Automotive Recyclers Association in Fairfax.

"The mentality of our members has changed, and it's being driven by our customer base. I think our customers are more educated to what to look for."

Blalock, whose organization developed the damage codes now used on recycled parts, said that most yards deal with wholesale customers such as insurance companies and car dealers, with retail taking a back seat.

"If someone walks in the door, we're not going to be rude and throw them out," Richard said. "But it's not the great majority of our business because of the parts we deal with; I've got 2008 model cars here. There aren't many people looking for 2008 model parts. Their car is going to be under warranty."

Richard's business is part of the Premium Recycled Parts Group, a group of 69 yards with a hub in Charlotte, N.C. Richard's trucks ferry parts to Richmond, which are shipped to Charlotte. On the return trip, the truck is filled with parts from other yards.

"We can get a part from Chicago in two days," he said.

Norfolk Recycling is one of the many yards in Hampton Roads, a market that hasn't experienced the consolidation seen among salvage yards in other markets, such as Richmond.

"Ten years ago, 86 percent of yards had 10 employees or less; now it's 54 percent," said Michael Wilson, ARA executive vice president, who says that the increasing level of sophistication is leading to the consolidation.

But all of the practices also allow for one side benefit: "Our parts are now being compared to after-market parts," Blalock said.