Selling or donating a beat up car. Thoughts, experiences?

In My Humble Opinion
41

My Jeep was a lemon Law replacement. Unfortunately after 10 years it died in Moab UT. Engine overheated, heads warped badly. Couldn’t get parts for the diesel engine and the nearest dealership was in Grand Junction CO, 125 miles away.

I could’ve sold it but instead I donated it to the receptionist at the shop in Moab. She could take her time and wait for a replacement engine and the shop could install it, all at low costs to her, employee discount and all that, and then she’d have a Jeep (Grand Cherokee) for her young family.

That’s my recent sell it or donate it story.

42

I’m not in the U.S., but this has been my limited experience as well. Really sketchy guys crawling up under some rocks, weird, almost unsettling phone calls, no-shows etc., and to top it all, a guy who turned up checking my beater out when I told them I wasn’t there, and literally kicked the trimmings off the Volvo hem.

Never again.

43

I keep my cars forever and when they’re totally messed up, I donate them. I wouldn’t get much if I sold them, plus our state has a lemon law, so in theory, selling the car could just be the start of extra trouble.

44

Does your state’s lemon laws cover private sales of used cars well outside of their warranty?

Edit: In Wisconsin, used cars aren’t covered. It applies to new cars, less than a year old, still within their warranty, that the dealer has attempted to fix 4 times or has been out of service for at least 30 days.

At least in Wisconsin, lemon laws won’t come into play WRT the private sale of a used car.
https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/dmv/cons-protect/lemon-law/lemonlaw.aspx

45

There was a news article I saw this morning that reminded me of this thread. A white back, a boat was stranded just off the coast in Milwaukee. It was several months and a lot of money before the county finally got it out of the water:

What caught my attention is that, in an attempt to recover some of the money, they’re selling the boat, specifically “as is”.

46

I mean, a graffiti’d boat labeled “Deep Thought” would absolutely work as an art installation.

47

We have twice donated cars to Teen Challenge. As I understand it, they take delinquents, teach them car maintenance/repair skills, by cannibalising and reassembling the donated cars, into running autos.

And, I think, at graduation/launch they get sent off with a car. That I assume, they can repair and maintain quite handily.

Each time, we got a tax write off well in excess of the value of the car. Both cars had been declared, ‘don’t put more money into this car!’, by our mechanic.

48

I love the people who reply to my ad and, before even seeing the car, ask if I’ll take x hundred dollars below what I’m asking. That has happened a few times as well.

49

My spouse’s (old, beat-up) car started having transmission issues and instead of taking care if it they just stopped driving it and left it parked in the garage. Not my car, not my business, not my monkeys…

Cut to about 4 years later. I wanted the car out of the garage. It wouldn’t start, the axel was rusted and frozen in place, and the electrical was shot - I think mice nibbled through the wires.

Spouse said they would donate it. I said OK. Every couple weeks I’d ask about the donation. It never happened and spouse would get annoyed at me for asking.

I finally had enough and called one of those companies what will pay you (minimally) for junk cars. They came, dragged the car out of the garage (quite the noise with the frozen axel), put it up on a flatbed and took it away. And paid me $300 for the trouble. I would have paid them at that point so that was a bonus.

I gave spouse the $300.

50

Been there.

51

There’s always somebody whose ad has been out there attracting no real takers and the seller is getting increasingly frustrated. An aggressive buyer can catch them at the right moment of frustration and vulnerability and Bingo! They got a car for cheap.

Which they can probably flip.


Everything about the car biz is sleazy. From new car sales to insurance to repairs to junkyards. Or at least there is a notably large sleazy component operating in each of those commercial niches.

52

Yes. Massachusetts. Here’s the info on the Mass private sale lemon law.

53

Having been in the Sales and Claims end of the insurance biz, plus dealing with more junkyards than I care due to the latter, I’d say you’re mostly right. But it’s more about catering to customers in the first two, and noticeable skeevy not-quite-legal crap in the last.

For sales, I was trained (and did!) always offer a quote on respectable coverage, even if the customers 90% of the time just wanted the cheapest available option. I’d normally preface that with “I know you asked for the cheapest, and I will do so, but I want to first show you how little more it is for coverage that actually would take care of you in an accident”. And then after doing so, the result was almost always “What’s the cheapest thing that can get me on the road/this car off the lot” and internally sighing, quote them that [ state minimums, no MedPay/PIP, $1000 ded, no rental or roadside. And that’s what they’d want, even if the useful coverage was only about 20% more.

And more often than not, these are the sort of policies that ended up in place for one or two months before dropping and probably ending up in a bad state with their financing company. Or they’d go with someone who just quoted the minimums without pointing out the risks. Which just makes it a race to the bottom.

Or with the carrier I did claims with, they were an old-school company, and allowed substantial leeway in terms of cheesing the at-fault (for internal purposes, ie ratees) or waiving deductibles. And that was somewhat reflected in the rates, though as a mutual company, they weren’t quite as profit driven. Still, every year their generally quite old base kept running up higher costs, they failed to secure many if any new customers, and the writing was on the wall for sustainability before I left.

And the sheer number of junkyards we caught dragging their heels on sending us pics so they could run up “storage” fees (paid by us, or often the customer) not to mention all the ones caught buying “used” catalytic converters or (in two cases at least) sawing them off themselves and claiming it was pre-existing damage…

Ugh. I liked making people whole, or doing due diligence in selling coverage that protected people, but the “only price matters” people and the borderline (or over!) scummy people involved at so many levels means I don’t mind not being a part of it anymore.

54

I have done both.

Let me start out by saying I have a relative who owns an auto repair shop in San Antonio so I might be able to get you some inside advice. Feel free to PM me.

You are always going to do better financially if you sell your car. It is also going to be a lot more effort if you do a private sale, and you have to deal with scam buyers*. Even with legit buyers you have to ensure that the form of payment is valid (take cash), coordinate to transfer the car and title in such a way that they can register it (meet at DMV), etc. I have used Craigslist, Autotrader, and Facebook Marketplace. The number of scams has gone up over the year since the first time I did this because the scammers’ automation is getting better.

It’s pretty easy to sell it to a dealer like Car Max–you will save a lot of hassle but get less cash. However, with the damage you described, mechanical problems (including unknown ones), and high mileage (more than double the average), they may not take it. If they do, they’re going to lowball you. There might be local used car lots that would take a car like that but I don’t know, I’ve never dealt with one. Also a lowball situation.

Donating is easy, they’ll take anything. However, your financial advantage could total zero. With the current tax code, most people are better off taking the standard deduction rather than itemizing, and you can take a charitable deduction only if you itemize. If you itemize, find out from the charity if you will be able to deduct full market value, or something else like an auction price. I donated a minivan to a local high school’s auto mechanic vocational program. This was before the current tax code, so I was able to deduct it. For this program, I was able to deduct the full fair market value of the car, because they were going to improve the car then sell it. The school gave me a tax form recording the donation and listing the deductible value.

I priced out your car on KBB (using standard equipment, Fair condition, zip code 78015) and it came in at the range $1,425-3,128 for a private party sale. Your car is probably worse than Fair condition, so that price is optimistic at best. The bottom line is 1) how much work are you willing to do for that amount of money, and 2) what is the value to you of making a charitable donation.

*The most common scam is that they tell you they are out of town, but will buy the car sight unseen for your asking price. They will send a transport service to pick it up. They will send you payment in a cashier’s check for the price of the car plus the transport fee. They will ask you to wire the transportation fee directly to the transport company. By the time you do all of that, a week later the cashier’s check bounces because it was a counterfeit, and you are out the transport fee with no way to identify the buyer or recover your loss.

55

I got a call and they said, “What’s the lowest amount you’ll take?” I said, “What’s the highest you’ll pay?” Short conversation.

56

If you want to be able to text with buyers but don’t want to give out your phone number, you can use a free texting services. TextNow is one. There are many others. These services give you a phone number that you can use for texting through an app or their web site. This way you can communicate with buyers during the sale and then delete the number when you’re done. You won’t have to worry about any scammers getting your real phone number.

57

A reminder to everyone that a deduction of $X from your income produces a 15% to 35% reduction in the tax you actually pay. The percentage that matters is the marginal tax rate at the top of your taxable income.

So using the rough top of that price range as an example, if they’re able to deduct $3K, they’re looking at a $500 to $1K reduction in their total taxes.

So not a great way to make money, but as you said, a very easy and scam-resistant way to get rid of the car.

58

With the benefit of supporting a worthy organization.

59

Eh, not really. Or at least not much.

You donate a car with a plausible resale value of $1K. They give you a tax receipt for an inflated “FMV” of $2K (if you’re lucky). The car actually goes to a commercial subcontractor who sells it for $1000, takes $900 of that as their fee and pays the charity $100.

So your taxes go down ~$500, the charity is $100 better off, and a used car got sold for $1K to somebody who needs it.

60

Or…you spend a week or so sifting through a bunch of scams, waste a couple of afternoons showing the car and negotiating with assholes, rejecting lowballs, spend another hour meeting a buyer and trading paperwork. And you have $1K instead of $500. Depends on what you’re willing to do for $500.