How does one sell a nonfunctional car?

SLyM

I have a fairly old car and my transmission just broke. Got it towed and looked at and it seems pretty expensive to fix so now I'm looking to sell it and get a newer one. I know that places will buy old cars and take them apart, what should I search for? How much do nonfunctional cars sell for? I assume I need my title and other paperwork?

Enc

Most dealerships will give you a couple of hundred dollars for scrap just to make the sale. Depending on the make and model, they may give you more than that if they think the bluebook value is high enough. I'd reccomend the dealership route personally as their demand to make the sale will push things along while a scrap yard will be probably more firm in what they will give you as they can take or leave it. Also the dealership will be able to handle the title transfer hopefully.

Main perk of the scrap yard: A scrap yard will probably pay you slightly more, but probably not much more.

Darkewolfe

Make sure to focus in the cost of towing it to where you want to sell it, assuming you can't trailer it yourself.

Chiselphane

I like the scrap yard route myself, it's a very quick and easy process. You might not even need a title, depending on what state you're in, although of course having the title will make the whole thing easier. Whatever you do, make sure you contact the scrapyard yourself directly, don't go through the middleman sites like Peddle or whatever. They take a ridiculous amount out in fees and such; I recently junked a minivan and junkmycar quoted me $35, while the scrapyard gave me $250 for it. (Late 90s minivan, not running, half the windows shot out by neighborhood kid with a bb gun ><)

Quid

If you itemize your taxes it could be worthwhile to donate it instead. Organizations like NPR will even come get it for free and give you a receipt.

Donovan Puppyfucker

If your car was worth anything in good working order, it's not anymore. It's not even a case of "Well they're selling online for $8k and a new transmission is $3k fitted, so I'll sell it for $5k" - yeah nah maybe $1500 if you can find an eager buyer. Because the first thing anyone is going to think is "what else is wrong with it?" and even if the rest of the car is in concourse condition, it's still a pain in the arse to organise and pay for the repairs and have the car not actually be available to use whilst it's getting fixed.

Your best bet is going to be selling it to a mechanic who can fix it themselves fairly cheaply and then on-sell it for it's real market value, and they know your only other real option is a wreckers or the few hundred a dealership will give you for trade in so they'll lowball you hard.

Unfortunately you're in the position where no matter what you do you're kinda fucked.

WiseManTobes

Some dealerships have decent trade ins on junkers as well towards purchase of next car.

ArbitraryDescriptor

I got some decent quotes from online junk car buyers, which I pitted against some local guys. Few hundred bucks, free towing, but basically what the dealer offered for a trade in. Similar situation, >10 year old car, "worth" 4k, engine repairs: 4k.

You will need your title if you go through proper channels; I didn't have it, so I sold it to a local guy and just signed power of attorney over to him for that car so he could recover the title later if he needed it.

Hevach

WiseManTobes wrote: »

Some dealerships have decent trade ins on junkers as well towards purchase of next car.

These kinds of deals often stipulate a new car or a minimum financing on a used one, sometimes even dealership financing which is almost always a bad deal. They give the good deal because they play with numbers to get the car for free as long as you dont default.

Advertise it as "mechanic's special." Take the bluebook, subtract the price of the repairs you know it needs, divide the resulting number by ~3. 2 if you want to start high and lower it later, but the question with a car like this is always what else is wrong that will only reveal itself on the road, what broke sitting in your driveway, what is ok now but will break soon (if the struts aren't pristine many buyers will walk on a mechanic's special).

Call junk yards with the year/make/model. Some will buy based on scrap steel weight, others based on parts value. It's 50/50 which will actually be higher, the parts salvage lots want very high margins because some won't work and much more won't sell, whereas the scrap dealer knows very close to what he'll get once the car is crushed and shredded.

zepherin

If you are handy you can always sell off the valuable parts on your car first before scrapping it. My dad had a transmission go out on a 15 year old ford and he sold the battery for 40 bucks, the tires for 200 bucks, a door for 50 bucks and the steering wheel for 30, the spark plugs and other weird shit for 100 bucks and then sold the rest for scrap for 200 dollars. He would have gotten 300 for scrap if he had kept the wheels on.

Enc

With all this said, if you were thinking about getting a new car to replace it, go with the dealership and save yourself some headache. The amount of time dealing with selling a car by parts if you aren't in that game is likely not worth the storage or hassle, unless you have a lot of free time and extra space in a garage.

mRahmani

The easiest route is probably to just call a scrapyard and let them come get it. If you have the patience to deal with tire kickers, and the car still has some major functional components (IE engine still runs well, even though the trans is shot), you can try throwing it on craigslist at half price as a parts car/mechanics special. Even though it's not worth much as a driver, there's always a chance a local shade tree mechanic is looking for some of the parts off of it.