Part by part, and what each tells you
The cage tells you whether the tote has a second life. The bottle tells you what the tote has been through, in the sun and in service. The valve is the quickest fix and the commonest leak. The lid and cap keep contamination out. The base decides whether a forklift can pick it up. The fittings decide what you can connect to it.
None of this needs a tool. A hand down every bar, a look at the bottle in good light, an open-and-close of the valve and a look under the base cover most of it. The grader takes the same checks and returns a grade for each group of totes.
| Part | First check | Fault that changes the grade |
|---|---|---|
| Cage | Straight bars, sound welds | Bent bars or cracked welds |
| Bottle | Clear wall, heel line | Chalk, stains or cracks |
| Valve | Opens, closes, seals | Broken body or missing |
| Lids and caps | Present, sealed | Missing or cracked |
| Base and pallet | Whole deck and runners | Broken base |
| Fittings and adapters | Thread and size match | Wrong size or damaged threads |
Part swap, rebottling or scrap
Three fixes cover almost every fault. A part swap replaces a valve, a lid, a cap or a base. Rebottling replaces the bottle inside a straight cage. Scrap sends the steel and plastic to recycling. The art of grading is knowing which one a fault leads to, and not paying for a bottle in a bent cage or scrapping a cage that only needs a valve.
A short note on swap parts
Swap parts are cheap compared with a whole tote, so it is worth asking about them. A new valve or cap costs a few dollars on its own, and replacing one can bring a tote from damaged to reusable.
Order of repair
Fix the valve first, then the cap, then the base, and only then think about the bottle or cage. Most totes need nothing more.
The six part pages
Questions people ask
Which part fails most often?
The valve leaks most often and is the cheapest to fix. The bottle is the part that ends reuse most often, through sun, cracks or stains.
Can I buy parts?
Ask in the request. Say the part, the size and the tote type.
Sources. Last reviewed 2026-11-11.