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What to do with a car that's falling apart (sell/trade)?

post #1 of 23
6/15/10 at 12:46am
Thread Starter 
I'm driving a '98 camry with 285,000KM (~180,000 miles) and it's showing signs of age lately. It's got a laundry list of problems (all fixable), and I don't know what to do with it. I figure the repairs will cost more than the car is worth.

I don't know if I can sell it profitably (given all the repairs needed) or if anyone would take it as a trade, or if I should just drive it until it falls apart completely and scrap it. I'm hoping to buy a new car within the next year and am OK with driving a clunker as long as I don't get sudden repair bills.

So here's the rundown on what's wrong with it:
-a little rust creeping up around the edges of the quarter panels
-cracked bumper from a fender bender
-cracked windshield from the time I hit a deer (I think there's another thread on that )
-shocks/link bars/bushings/whatever those things are need to be replaced
-the turn signal doesn't seem to work properly
-when I turn the steering wheel to the extremes at low speeds, it makes a sound like a bag of cats according to other people (but apparently I'm oblivious to it)
- to top it all off, the key doesn't fit in the drivers side lock anymore, so I gotta open it from the passenger side

Given all this, will any sane dealer take it as a trade? If I'm buying a $15K car, how much of a trade should I ask for on it?
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post #2 of 23
6/15/10 at 1:06am
Craigslist is your best choice to sell the car. Dealer will give you almost nothing for it, car will go straight to auction. There it might bring a grand.

The cat noise is probably the CV joints, about $80 a side in parts, if you have a wrench/socket set and some jackstands it should take you an hour or so per side to change over.

The transmission stuff maybe a little more complicated, the rest I wouldn't care about if it passes inspection.
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post #3 of 23
6/15/10 at 1:18am
I'm no expert, but I think it depends on how badly the dealer needs to sell cars. You will probably get more cash from a private buyer, but the dealer may throw other stuff into the offer that make up most of the loss. Depends. Trading in also saves you a headache. Dont expect to get much, but you can use it as a bargaining chip. I got a decent deal on a car I traded in because they had to move inventory.
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post #4 of 23
6/15/10 at 1:49am
nothing sounds unsafe, but Im no mechanic.

At this point I'd drive it until it was literally dead or had a major repair issue. Delay that car payment as much as possible and save up the cash for a nice down payment. Im not sure what the specifics are, but cant you donate it to charity or something for a nice tax write off? Dont know if thats better than private seller though.
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post #5 of 23
6/15/10 at 4:57am
In America you could donate it, and the tax write-off would probably be more valuable than what you could sell it for. Don't know if it works the same way in Canada though...
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post #6 of 23
6/15/10 at 7:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dtmt View Post
In America you could donate it, and the tax write-off would probably be more valuable than what you could sell it for. Don't know if it works the same way in Canada though...

How is this possible? Let's say the car is worth $2,000 based on Kelly Blue Book's private sale value. If OP donates it and deducts it at the end of the year from his taxable income, and say, he's in the 25% tax bracket, then the tax saving is $500. If he sells it and gets 75% of KBB's value, then he takes in $1,500. OP would have to claim that his car is worth $6,000 to get the same result from tax deductions vs. selling outright. You like being audited by the IRS?

In any case, I donated a car to some charity that I basically ran to the ground while in college. Everything was working and it was in decent shape, but the manual transmission kept giving me trouble. I didn't want to have to sink more money into it every year, and it wasn't worth much privately (try to sell a car that's not working!), so I donated it. It was also a good cause as the charity fixes the cars and gives it away to people who need transportation for work. I felt better at the end of the day than I would have if I had sold it to some poor bastard.
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post #7 of 23
6/15/10 at 11:01am
KBB values are usually pretty inflated to begin with, and if you've got an old car with a lot of problems it's often hard to find anyone that will be interested for more than a few hundred dollars, there's just fewer and fewer people these days interested in turning their own wrenches, and dealers will give you even less for trade-in. Charities usually give you the full KBB value as writeoff no matter what shape the car is in.
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post #8 of 23
6/15/10 at 11:49am
All those things sounds reasonably easy and cheap to fix or are cosmetic...as far as the key issue, could you have a new key made? I had the problem with my Civic, turns out the key was too worn down to properly work in the lock.
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post #9 of 23
6/15/10 at 11:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dtmt View Post
In America you could donate it, and the tax write-off would probably be more valuable than what you could sell it for. Don't know if it works the same way in Canada though...
I think this is a really good option, if possible in Canada.
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post #10 of 23
6/15/10 at 12:56pm
I had a neighbor donate a very old Infinity with a looong list of problems and it wasn't even running and got a $6K tax break by donating it. May be worth looking into. Either that or give it to some kid as his first car.
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post #11 of 23
6/15/10 at 11:01pm
craigslist is okay...


If you park it on somewhere near a busy street with 500 dollars over the amount you'd like to get for it and OBO you'll get the number you want or close to it.

A guy I know does this quite often, he'll buy a car for cheap put a day or two's worth of work into it park it at the mall for an afternoon or two BAM! sold.
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post #12 of 23
6/16/10 at 3:20am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by robbie View Post
A guy I know does this quite often, he'll buy a car for cheap put a day or two's worth of work into it park it at the mall for an afternoon or two BAM! sold.
I would take this route if I knew how to fix any of this stuff myself. But given all the things that need to be fixed, I'd be paying more to fix it than the car could possibly sell for. The high KM's, cosmetic damage, and squeaking will instantly make any potential buyer run for the hills. I'm leaning towards trading it just so I don't have the headache of trying to unload this thing myself. At first I was worried that maybe they wouldn't even take it as a trade, but then a co-worker explained to me that for a car like that, they would sell it for spare parts through a whoesaler. He said a used car salesman once explained to him "no matter what condition any vehicle is in, it is always has at least $1,000 of spare parts in it, so it's always worth something at auction" This makes sense to me, because I see some dealers advertise that they will take trades even on non-working vehicles. If I got $1,500 for this thing at this point, I'd be satisfied.
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post #13 of 23
6/16/10 at 4:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FidelCashflow View Post
I would take this route if I knew how to fix any of this stuff myself. But given all the things that need to be fixed, I'd be paying more to fix it than the car could possibly sell for. The high KM's, cosmetic damage, and squeaking will instantly make any potential buyer run for the hills.

I'm leaning towards trading it just so I don't have the headache of trying to unload this thing myself. At first I was worried that maybe they wouldn't even take it as a trade, but then a co-worker explained to me that for a car like that, they would sell it for spare parts through a whoesaler. He said a used car salesman once explained to him "no matter what condition any vehicle is in, it is always has at least $1,000 of spare parts in it, so it's always worth something at auction" This makes sense to me, because I see some dealers advertise that they will take trades even on non-working vehicles. If I got $1,500 for this thing at this point, I'd be satisfied.

I worked at a new car dealership several years ago. They will offer you $50 bucks for your car as described. And that's thinking optimistically.

We would take in trades like yours for $50, put it thru the mechanic shop and detail center, then park it out front at a markup of $4,000. If it sold for $2,750 the buyer thinks they got a deal and we just made a grip. True story.
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post #14 of 23
6/16/10 at 5:24pm
Look up the donation tax write off rules. Your answer is there.
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post #15 of 23
6/17/10 at 12:21am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigbris1 View Post
I worked at a new car dealership several years ago. They will offer you $50 bucks for your car as described. And that's thinking optimistically.

Are you missing a zero?

I'd just walk off the lot if someone offered me that. But I guess in that case, I'm best off driving the car until it is literally dead. I see lots of dealerships offering "push pull or drag" trade-in events... are they actually making $50 offers at these things???
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