She has a 91 Eclipse with about 205,000 miles on it. It leaks oil everywhere, the idle is flaky, most of the paint is faded (except for the fresh Krylon), and the tires are nearly bald. The car was in a minor accident several months ago that messed up the front driver’s side of the car pretty bad. There is noticable gap between the body panels there and the radiator doesn’t sit like it used to. The frame is probably bent.
Now the thing has developed transmission problems. It shifts rough and the “Check Engine” light turns on every now and then. Our local mechanic thinks the transmission needs to be rebuilt. For $1800.
Needless to say, this car is a POS.
My sister needs a car to replace this one so we need to get rid of this car in the most cost effective way possible. Should we try to sell it ourselves (I don’t think so), trade it in at a used car place or donate it to charity and take the write-off? Or maybe some other way?
I’m facing a similar problem with my 95 Lumina. The transmission went out a couple days ago, despite the low mileage (only 60,000). Now its premanently stuck in first gear, can’t reverse, and if that’s not enough it’s sustained minor body damage and scrapes up and down both sides of it.
Best advice I’ve gotten so far is to donate it for a tax writeoff or sell to a junkyard. Still open to suggestions.
Um, pardon my ignorance, but what charities accept terminal cars?
To the OP: I found a couple demolition derby guys in my area that were ecstactic to buy my station wagon from hell a few years ago. They gave my much more than any junk yard would . . . “much more” not being that spectacular an amount in this case, but still . . .
Pretty much all of them, anymore. You get a tax-write off of whatever value you think the car’s worth, and the charity gets whatever cash they can by selling the car to a junkyard, or whatever. Call 'em and ask.
We donated a car a few years ago. We just went to a local church and they set it up. It wasn’t a beater, it ran fine (it was my SO’s dad’s car, he passed away) it was just a slightly older car that needed a little body work. I guess it was going to a program where people could get experience working on cars that need work, then they resell or give it to someone who needs a car after it is fixed up.
Maybe they do have a limit on how junky donations can be, but it never hurts to ask.
I don’t know where you are in Texas, mudcrutch, but if you’re close enough, Rice University has an aid organization for students that will probably be glad to take it if it runs at all. They’ll give it to a carless student.
This one gets my vote. Our paper takes freebie ads for free. I got rid of a mattress this way. Only caveat…you will probably get 6453 phone calls, some with heartbreaking personal details (imagine for a car! I was just giving away a mattress…I ended up wishing I had 100 mattresses to give away)
But it was easy. Place ad. First calls wins mattress. Person comes and takes away. Just make sure to use your answering machine message (even better use cell phone) to say the free car has already been taken.
If you’re near a volunteer fire company they will take the car and use it for practice. You will have the donation (write off) and the piece of mind that the car will not be a danger to the rest of the free world. We’ve done this with 3 cars over the years. An added feature is seeing the car opened up with the jaws of ife!
I don’t know if a promotion like this would be running this time of year, but there’s a couple of auto dealers around here that run promotions that guarantee a certain trade-in value (I think the last one I saw was $2000.00) to any car you can drive in (note: the $2000.00 promo actually guaranteed it to any car–driven, pushed or towed into the dealership). So you might look through the Auto section of your newspaper checking to see if anyone in your area is running a sale like that and offering more than the car is worth.
1-888-CAR-DIED. Seriously. This is a charity in my area that accepts donations of old cars. It accepted my father’s car when he could no longer drive it.
I’ve dontated one car myself and have made sure that old company cars get donated as well.
For me, here’s the deal - I can go though the time and effort to try to sell an old beater with 200,000 miles on it that’s being held together by rust, paint and chewing gum. For that effort, I might net $500. Or, I can donate the car and get a tax reciept for the full blue-book value of the vehicle (depending on the charity.)
I gave my '91 Festiva to the local technical college that has an auto program. Just make sure you sign over the title.
Only problem I had was the police sent me a letter, saying that my car was violating some public appearance law (it was in an alley in the next township). Turns out the school gave it to a student who was stripping it for parts. I wrote a letter to the cop, called the tech school, and apparently they took care of it.
Oh, and be sure to return the license plate to DMV.