No, not some abandoned, half disassembled wreck in a back alley, but a functioning car being driven around?
Over the weekend, I parked a lime green Dodge Dart with a slant 6, four speed manual, power nothing, and more rust holes and Bondo than sheetmetal.
Can such a car have a Book Value of $0?
They certainly can in the EU - regulations over recycling when scrapping mean that getting rid of a car costs around £200. If the car is worth less than that, then it’s effectively worth nothing, even as scrap. Indeed, you’ll be paying to get rid of it.
I don’t know about “book value”, but a drivable car can be worth nothing to someone.
My dad gave away a car to my friend for free.
The friend needed a car. The car was drivable, but definitely on its last legs. The insurance for it wasn’t expensive, but it was a cost my dad didn’t really need to be paying since the car wasn’t being driven very often at all. Also, my dad didn’t really have space for an extra car at his new place.
The car only cost my dad about $200 to begin with. (Plus probably another $300 for a few parts and repairs.) He probably could have sold it for something, but the annoyance of trying to find a buyer for such an old beater that was taking up space would have been more trouble than it was worth.
As someone who totals cars for a living (I pay for them, I don’t wreck them) the lowest value I would put on a car that runs is $500, and I don’t go that low very often. The reason for that is you just don’t see many vehicles advertised in any source for much less than that, thus it’s hard to document and support a lower value. You can certainly sell the POS for less if you want, but I think it’s safe to say the car is worth at least $500 to an insurance company should one find itself in the position of having to pay you for it.
If it *doesn’t * run, all bets are off. In that case many salvage yards will take it off your hands for free if you sign the title over to them. They’ll get *something * for the car even if they sell it to a crusher or a scrap yard–the value of the individual parts is often worth more than the car as a whole in any year make & model.
Oh wait.
You’re in New Jersey. :rolleyes:
Never mind. Drive it into the ocean.
Maybe a nitpick but if the car is drivable but will not pass the state safety inspection test it could easily be worth nothing. I paid $50 to get rid of an 87ish celebrity station wagon after I got it running again :mad:
What is the scrap metal value (not scrap parts, just scrap metal) of a beater vehicle? Say, a 1981 Buick Regal. The shell alone probably weighs 1,000 pounds. So that’s, what, 35-40 cents’ worth of scrap metal?
Back when I was in high school, the rule of thumb was that local junkyards would pay you a minimum of $35 for any car regardless of its condition. They could recover this just with the scrap value of the metal. But the value of a car went up from there, especially if the car was still drivable. I remember we mocked a friend because he sold his car (which was capable of moving) to a junkyard for $50 because he could have sold it for more. Offhand, I think $100 was usually the minimum for a moving car.
In Colorado we get about $15-30 for a crushed car, and that’s after we pay our salvor for dragging it over there–'course working in volume helps to keep those costs down. 
I guess it will always have some residual value, but not if the cost of getting to whoever can scrap it effectively exceeds the residual value.
They’re always running those ads around here asking you to donate your car to some charity for a tax deduction–even if it’s old, even if it doesn’t run, etc. etc… We had an old beater Toyota that eventually threw a rod or something. It would have been a very expensive repair for a car that was really on its last legs. So we called those charities, and they didn’t want it. Apparently it was too far gone, even though though its blue book value was still in the positive numbers. In practical terms, it was worthless.
We knew that it probably had some value for parts, as it was a really common model. But since it didn’t run, getting it to a junkyard wasn’t feasible. Plus, it was parked on a public street, so we had to do something about it quickly. Our mechanic gave us the name of a junk man. We signed the car over to him, and he came with a flatbed and took it away.
So it was worth less than nothing to us, because we would have had to figure out where to take it, pay to get it towed, etc., and the probable amount we would get for it would be about the same as the tow fee. So it wasn’t worth the bother. But it was worth something to the junk man since he obviously had a tow truck already and knew where to take it. He probably was able to get more for it than we could, being in the business. So it was a win-win situation.
In Maryland, you’ve got to have a car inspected when you either purchase it, or bring it into the state. It’s a pretty intense inspection, as we found out when we moved here in 1998 with two 10-year-old cars. The weird thing is, none of that stuff is ever inspected again, as long as you own the car.
So early last year, one of those cars was 15 years old (and 253K miles) and just barely ran. It wasn’t worth getting it up to passing inspection in order to sell it. (Buyer has the legal obligation to have it inspected, but the result is that no MD buyer is going to buy a used car that hasn’t recently passed inspection, so the seller winds up with the de facto responsibility.) So it was unsellable, essentially unusable, and there was no reason to pay the insurance. Value: zero. But I donated it, and got the tax write-off.
Not true. You can sell a vehicle “as is” in Maryland. If you do then it’s up to the buyer to have it inspected.
I have bought and sold several vehicles “as is”.
The last car I sent to the junkyard (1993) netted me a whole $50 and they picked it up.
I learned in high school it’s sometimes better to sell the parts. I had a '79 Firebird that was rusted to almost nothing and the entire brake system was shot. A junkyard offered $50 and would pick it up. I decided to sell the parts. $20 for the alternator, $15 for the radiator, etc. When all was said and done I made $300 and gave the chasis to the junkyard.