Our Ford Minivan (98 Windstar, 3.8L engine) has dumped us for the last time. The engine is no longer connected the the wheels. The engine idles & revs just fine - just doesn’t go anywhere when you put it in gear. Any gear. Very entertaining.
I’ve had a thread on this and other boards and, unfortunately, nothing useful has resulted. We towed the car over to transmission shop for diagnosis and they were kind enough to look it over. They said that, after pulling the codes & peeking under the car’s skirts, there was nothing left to do but crack the case. Minimum cost to repair based on that was hovering around $2000. It’s got paint & sheet metal damage, too.
The NADA guide puts the value of the car (working, of course) around $3000. We really don’t want to put $2000+ into a car worth $3000.
So - we’re replacing it, buying a rebuilt Toyata from a FOAF, but need to do something with this one.
How do I sell a broken car? It’d be a good vehicle to anybody who could do the work themselves. A rebuilt transmission is about $700 but I don’t have the skill to drop it in.
Any idea what it may be worth? What would be best way to get it sold?
I don’t know how much you are expecting to get for it. I got $400 for a Subaru that had been crushed by 3 oak trees in a hurricane. I put a classified ad in the paper under auto parts, since it was truly a parts car at that point.
A guy called the day I put the ad in. He lives up north and makes occasional trips down south to buy used Subarus specifically that don’t have the rust damage from northern winters. Then he brings them up north for parts or resale. That made my situation a bit fluky, perhaps.
Run a couple of free ads on Craigslist in different places, one offering it as a parts car and the other offering it as “needs work” vehicle and see what happens. But I wouldn’t run them together, as I’ve seen some do, cuz if you’re looking for a “needs work” car but see “or could use for parts,” you think, “geeze, how bad is it?”
I doubt you’ll get more than, say, $800 either way, but you never know.
One of Hallgirl’s old cars (she’s gone through three clunkers and finally bought a new Toyota. With a warantee.) had the tranny go out on it. Same thing as your van. We put an ad in the paper for a free car, you haul. You wouldn’t believe the calls we had for it, even though it was over 12 years old, had over 100,000 miles on it and the transmission was shot. I guess you figure if you have only $700 and can buy a rebuilt transmission, or a $700 car, you might be better off getting the free car and dropping a transmission in it.
You should be able to get $1k for it. The engine alone is worth about that even without being rebuilt. Call Klode or Copart and see if they’ll auction it on consignemnet for you.