I have a car I wish to sell, or at the very least be rid of.
The car in question is a 2011 Mini Cooper with 76,000 miles on it—comparatively low milage for a car of that age, but nevertheless it is obviously an older car.
Its only major mechanical flaw is a failed A/C compressor—that will need to be replaced before warmer weather arrives. Other than that, its mechanical bits have been well serviced and it has four new tires. It is zippy and a blast to drive–it is a Mini Cooper after all—as long as one is comfortable with a manual transmission.
Its problems after that are cosmetic, though unfortunately quite noticeable. The front grille is missing parts. There are some notable dents. The hood has splotches of white paint splashed on it. There are divots from hail damage. The bumpers are quite scratched up. The antenna cowling is missing. The right front fender is missing its plastic sheath.
Carvana’s algorithmic system says they might pay $1,400 for it. Kelly Blue Book says the range for this car’s make, vintage and mileage is $5,000 to $8,000.
In my limited experience, there are two things you can do with an older car other than the obvious of trying to sell it privately or taking a big hit on value by trading it in. Selling a car privately can be a big hassle that I try to avoid.
One thing is donating it to charity, which will generally haul it away for you and give you a tax credit, and the other is sending it to an automotive auction. I can’t give you specific gujidance because access to these things all depend on where you live. But I think this car is probably worth too much to just donate to charity, so you might do searches for car auctions in your area. You’ll only get the Blue Book wholesale price, but that’s still $$.
ETA: I see that Carvana itself owns an auction house, but there may be many independent ones in your area that you might check out.
I recently traded in an older vehicle and purchased a new one through Carvana and it was as easy as experience I could hope for. Saving hassle is, to me, worth the substantial financial penalty.
It helps if you tell us where on Earth you are. At least country and province / state / department, whatever your country calls their major subdivisions.
You might try contacting @Coriolanus. He wants a mini.
Not the same in the US; you get a deduction, not a credit. That immediately cuts it by about ⅔ (depending upon your tax bracket). Further you only get appraised value if the organization uses it. If they turn around & sell it (to a scrapyard) you only get credit for the value it was to them, say $100 or $200. If he were to donate it today (early Jan) he wouldn’t even benefit from that $33 or $66 until next April (or whenever he files his 2026 taxes). Sure, the charity gets $100 out of it today so they promote it but it seems like a sucker’s deal to the donator.
Also regarding the tax deduction for the charitable donation, that only matters if your deductions exceed the standard deduction amount of $16,100 for single tax filers and $32,200 for married couples filing jointly. That is why when I drop stuff off at Goodwill, I don’t bother getting a receipt.
I wouldn’t put a lot into fixing up the car. Likely, you’ll spend a lot more than you will get back from an increase in sale price. If you have the time and can tolerate the hassle of dealing with the general public, you might be able to get more from selling it yourself. To get an idea of what you might get from a private sale, a look at similar models on sites like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and NextDoor in your city and surrounding areas. Lots of people are looking for basic transportation and, provided the price is reasonable, won’t care too much about those mostly cosmetic things you mentioned. There may also be people in your area who have connections with scrap yards and will buy your car and then fix it up themselves for resale. CarMax is also an option for selling your car. If you have one in your area, take your car in for a quote to see what they’ll offer.
Yep, always add $1000 to whatever you want to get, or think the car is worth. If you want $1400 you could say ‘$1400 firm’ but a buyer is going to feel much happier if they ‘talk you down’ to $1400 than if they have to grudgingly pay a $1400 asking price.
When my son’s older car finally blew the head gasket, I looked into a couple haul-away places but the offers were a couple hundred bucks. So I threw it on Facebook for $1200, got about six messages within ten minutes and some guy came by with a trailer. I let my son make the choice to get talked down $200 and the guy took it away for a grand. I had a sales contract printed off from the internet making clear it was sold As-Is with no warranty or implied condition. Signed over the title and never heard from him again. Quick and easy.
I’d take your car and at least throw it up for $5k and decide what you’ll actually accept for it. As I understand, there’s a dearth of used cars on the market for various reasons and you know you can always trade it in otherwise. Spend a weekend with it for sale and potentially get 4x your return from it.
My daughter’s son has been fixing anything on wheels since he was a young teen. I think he’s owned 17 vehicles so far, and has now started up a detailing business at age 18.
Thanks for the reference. My last trip to the USA, driving on the right side, wasn’t a problem, banging my left against the driver’s door sucked worse than when I used to drive manual in the USA and would reach for the non-existing shifter in an automatic.
I’m not hearing any damaged tires that can mean all other suspension problems, In the UK you can get a history of inspections and I am stunned by the issues that would be an absolute FAIL in New York. Here they are advisories and it’s not unusual to see them repeat a couple times till they FAIL.
That says a lot about the owner. “Kept running, not cosmetically cherished — but mechanically neglected.”
The worst of those is the latter, so you’ve got that going for you (not neglecting I mean). Necessary body work can be priced in or out, yet for me if I see tires rubbing or going to minimum thread, loose ball joints or other suspension nightmares, I’m walking away,
Things are a little different here in Canada, but not necessarily all that much different, depending on one’s situation. A tax deduction means a deduction from the declared taxable income, while a tax credit means a deduction from the net tax owing. But if there’s no tax owing in any given year, neither means anything except for the ability to carry over a tax credit for up to 5 years.
Anyway, the Kidney Foundation of Canada gives a fixed $700 tax credit for any used vehicle donated to them. If nothing else, it helps them out, and they get rid of your old vehicle free. After it was sitting in my driveway for several weeks I was glad to get rid of the obstacle, though I still admit I was sad to see it go.