According to scrap metal dealers, they are currently receiving more vehicles than last fall, but the increase is not significant.

"In fact, the number of scrap vehicles coming in was already slightly up last year, when the car tax was first discussed. What we can say now is that, yes, indeed, people want to get rid of their old scrap cars before winter," said Toomas Kollamaa, a member of scrap metal dealer Kuusakoski's board.

Kollamaa estimates that the increase could eventually be as much as 10 percent.

Toomas Kängsepp, purchasing manager of scrap dealer Tolmet in Pärnu County and Lääne County, also said that there is no rush to sell at the moment.

"We haven't seen a major trend directly, but the year is not over yet," he said.

According to Kollamaa, the price of scrap metal has fallen over the past year, but not by a huge amount.

"It has come down somewhat, the fall is around €10 per tonne, and the main driver is the scrap metal itself. If the prices of scrap metal, or raw materials on the stock exchange fall a little, the buying price of scrap will also fall," he explained.

A year ago, a tonne of scrap vehicles in Kuusakoski fetched €225, now the price is €215. For example, a Volkswagen Passat, one of the most popular cars for Estonians, fetches around €300 from Kuusakoski.

Tolmet currently pays €175 for a scrap car, with Kängsepp saying that in recent years the buying price has remained similar,

"There's never been any change of the kind whereby the price here was twice as high. Over the last five years, it has always fluctuated between €170 and €200," he said.

Statistics from the Estonian Transport Administration show that while last year there were nearly 6,000 vehicles with suspended registrations, this year the number has fallen by 2,500.

"This shows that there are still thousands [of vehicles] but the amount has now decreased. So in that respect, you could say that these vehicles have begun to be dealt with. I guess you could say it's down to fear of the car tax," said Märten Surva, head of the vehicle registration department at the Transport Administration.

However, Surva stressed that vehicles with suspended registrations will only be subject to the tax from 2027. A transitional period will be introduced to deal with the issue of so-called "phantom vehicles" in particular.

"That is largely what the interim buffer period is for, so that you can delete a vehicle from the register that doesn't really exist and doesn't have to pay tax unnecessarily," he said.

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