Have you ever written off a car yourself? I don’t mean by crashing it. I mean where it gets to the point that the cost of repairing the car and keeping it on the road far outweighs its value so you decide to write it off as not worth it.
I’ve done this many times now and I’m about to do it again. The car is worth about two thousand five hundred book price, but the cost of repairs are more than that after it developed a serious engine fault.
The problem with modern cars is they are too complex and parts are very expensive. A headlight was 900 pounds and that was just the plastic casing with no electrics or bulb inside! Ridiculous. And don’t get me started on labour costs.
Despite the car looking great there comes a time when it is not worth sinking more money into it and instead putting your money towards your next daily drive.
So what to do about the old car? If it has a serious fault you cannot sell it in good conscience without declaring it, at which point you may be lucky to get scrap value, even in a part-exchange. If however you have somewhere to store the car, one thing I do is sell it for parts. Most cars are worth more as a sum of parts than as a whole.
I like to start from the inside working out. I have used eBay, Gumtree, Facebook marketplace, and even the side of the road outside my house. I have stripped cars and used the proceeds to fund the next car purchase or project.
It can take time and you have to take the weather into consideration, which is why I start from the inside first. Inside the cabin, under the bonnet, inside the boot. Rain can ruin exposed interior parts. The last things I sell tend to be trims, brightwork, and the wheels. When I’m left with the body shell I sell that too to a scrap metal dealer. They get the V5C document, after which you are no longer the owner of the car, or whatever is left of it.
If the car was your pride and joy then some can feel depressed about breaking it up and may be willing to take a loss in return for selling it on cheap as a project to a new owner who may keep it on the road. I tend to be more mercenary though and sell it for as much as I can get. I once sold a classic, one of only a handful left in existence. I couldn’t find a collector interested so I sold it to someone who wanted the parts, especially the engine. The rest was scrapped.
Sometimes the best thing is to just write the car off yourself.