I have a 2005 Nissan Armada with a bad transmission. Not going to fix it, I have already bought its replacement. So I have never scrapped a vehicle before nor tried to sell a broken one. It does go forward up to 30 mph and also goes into reverse. I am leaning toward listing on craigslist and seeing what I can get for it. Am I missing another option?
Note, this is NOT a for sale ad for the Armada. Just looking for opinions.
List it on Facebook marketplace, too.
Find out what the junk yard is offering for it. Give yourself 2-3 weeks to sell it, at least above scrap price. If it doesn't go by then, send it.
In reply to ThurdFerguson :
Donate it! What is your tax liability position? You will get it's fair market value as a tax credit
Technically. you can claim it's a running driving vehicle.
They will come and haul it away.
Put in on the intarweb for three times what it's worth and let someone lowball you into a fair price.
You'll probably get less than $500 from a junkyard. Maybe significantly less. I bet you'd get more than you think from a private party. If you start at $1500, you might just get it!
@Frenchy: Vehicle donations changed a lot a number of years ago. You can only write off what the charity actually gets out of selling the car.
In reply to frenchyd :
Some recent GRM chatter in this thread about donating vehicles which is probably relevant to the OP too.
I agree, put in CL/FB for more than you think and someone will lowball you to a number that is good enough AND they will tow it away for you.
In reply to John Welsh :
Assuming your willing to deal with Craigslist people yes you might do better. And if the charity isn't what you'd like to donate to there are many who will accept your car.
Once you arrive at a certain income level you simply cannot afford to take the standard deduction. Personally I've never taken just the standard deduction. But a lot do, that's why they make the standard deduction.
There are still 77,000+ pages in the tax codes. Plus those two wonderful words, Legal Presicident . Which greatly multiply legal deductions.
You can find help with either a tax lawyer or someone who worked for The IRS long enough and is now preparing taxes.
I think the question is how much the OP's time is worth to him. That might help with the decision if it makes more sense to just junk the car or try to sell it and deal with the CL/FB flakes.
In reply to frenchyd :
Yes, I agree.
As I wrote in the other thread:
My moral here is don't think the tax break will make a difference for you. It throws a couple of bucks at your charity but they benefit from it far more than you do; and that is nice if you like the charity. It also is a clean way to make a car go away...right away. That is probably the greatest benefit to the owner.
In reply to dculberson :
You're right and maybe I was being overly suggestive saying it was running and driving. But I've watched enough auto auctions to not be shocked at what things sell for anymore.
Realize there are buyers from all over the world looking for cars. Not everybody is as jaded as wrench bending Americans.
Our labor rates make something like that pretty cheap but I've seen cars with major damage claim prices I wouldn't pay for a perfect examples. Realize that the same global buyers at Copart and IAAI are shopping the charity auctions.
To be fair it's not consistent. I'm seeing really nice older cars that look like they've been well cared for sometimes go for a strong market price and the next week / month it doesn't meet minimum bid. Not just at co-part and IAAI but also the charity auctions.
In reply to John Welsh :
I do agree, I read it that he wants it gone, but that might not be his prime motivation.
Locally there are 2 places that would use that vehicle to train drug addicts into a worthwhile profession and contribute the repaired result to struggling single parent families.
I don't know the tax implications in that case.
When I junked my beloved truck my goal was that no one be mislead into buying what would appear on the surface to be worthwhile.
The junkyard I dealt with sold the tittle ensuring it would not go back on the road.
frenchyd said:In reply to dculberson :
You're right and maybe I was being overly suggestive saying it was running and driving. But I've watched enough auto auctions to not be shocked at what things sell for anymore.
Realize there are buyers from all over the world looking for cars. Not everybody is as jaded as wrench bending Americans.
Our labor rates make something like that pretty cheap but I've seen cars with major damage claim prices I wouldn't pay for a perfect examples. Realize that the same global buyers at Copart and IAAI are shopping the charity auctions.
To be fair it's not consistent. I'm seeing really nice older cars that look like they've been well cared for sometimes go for a strong market price and the next week / month it doesn't meet minimum bid. Not just at co-part and IAAI but also the charity auctions.
Just pulled thier 2017 annual report, I have to say I'm shocked to see that 20% of their online vehicle auctions are sold internationally*.
*This is also based on the address on the registration, not evidence of the vehicles actually being shipped out of the country.
At the IAA, Cleveland Ohio auctions it seems that jus about any Mitsu cute-ute like Outlanders are won by bidders from African Counties. I figure they must be amazed at the rust but the engines always have low miles. In other countries, Mitsubishi has a different reputation and more marketshare.
Lots of old 4Runners go out of the country too.
In my mind a VK56DE wrapped in hundreds of dollars of self-propelled scrap metal is worth at LEAST $1500.
Ok, I'll put it on my local craigslist and FB marketplace and go from there.
z31maniac said:frenchyd said:In reply to dculberson :
You're right and maybe I was being overly suggestive saying it was running and driving. But I've watched enough auto auctions to not be shocked at what things sell for anymore.
Realize there are buyers from all over the world looking for cars. Not everybody is as jaded as wrench bending Americans.
Our labor rates make something like that pretty cheap but I've seen cars with major damage claim prices I wouldn't pay for a perfect examples. Realize that the same global buyers at Copart and IAAI are shopping the charity auctions.
To be fair it's not consistent. I'm seeing really nice older cars that look like they've been well cared for sometimes go for a strong market price and the next week / month it doesn't meet minimum bid. Not just at co-part and IAAI but also the charity auctions.Just pulled thier 2017 annual report, I have to say I'm shocked to see that 20% of their online vehicle auctions are sold internationally*.
*This is also based on the address on the registration, not evidence of the vehicles actually being shipped out of the country.
The part I was most surprised by is with the strong dollar relative to other currencies how strong our cars are selling. Especially when you consider the cost of shipping.
I don't know if it's still this way but a fair number of cars used to be sold near border towns needing bodywork repaired and resold back into the states. The labor cost difference between Mexico and the US is really massive.
What about listing it for sale here? I'm sure someone would buy it and try to build a VK56DE powered washing machine for the Challenge.
If you have the time and space, how about parting it out on eBay. Dculberson here has documented his work on here on 2 cars now and he is making good money with it, and I've taken some of his tips that have helped my own eBay sales of the random parts I have leftover from race car builds.
there may be someone looking for that car to fix a crashed one,,,,,,
find out what the junkyard will give you , add 50% and hopefully get rid of it with no work ,
In reply to Sonic :
I am honored. ;-)
Your tips are helpful! Things like look at closed sales to keep stuff that will sell for enough to make it worthwhile, get everything clean and pictures in batches, etc. I was just surprised yesterday when something I had up for a year finally sold.
That kind of vehicle is exactly what someone like me would kill to have... if I were looking for that type of vehicle.
Cars like that (to people like me) are $1000 to buy, $500 and a weekend to swap a good junkyard transmission, and under $2k I have a vehicle worth $4k.
Find some mechanic kid who needs a car for college and sell it. Scrap yards are a joke these days. Not their fault, but scrap prices are awful, and they will require you to drain all the fluids, which means more work and disposal for you. Even 3 years ago, I scrapped an entire Caprice Wagon and I got $175 for it. Right now, steel is coming in around 2 cents per pound. Whole cars are in the neighborhood of $100 or less per ton. That means you'll likely get $175 for your car.
Junkards and pick-a-part lots aren't paying much more. First, most of them are full given the disposable nature of many modern cars, and environmental laws mean they have to crush a certain amount for credit. You'll be lucky to get $250 for it at a junkyard. They know they'll only get $400 for the engine and $200 for the seats and then it will sit around for 5 years waiting to get crushed.
General rule of thumb that I use: Take the trade in value, subtract the cost of the junkyard parts times 2. So (using random numbers) if the KBB trade in value is $3000, and junkyard transmissions are averaging $700, take $3000 and subtract 1400. Bingo. $1600. Put it on CL and FB for $1600 and take the first $1250 that shows up. Less work, more money.
ThurdFerguson said:I have a 2005 Nissan Armada with a bad transmission. Not going to fix it, I have already bought its replacement. So I have never scrapped a vehicle before nor tried to sell a broken one. It does go forward up to 30 mph and also goes into reverse. I am leaning toward listing on craigslist and seeing what I can get for it. Am I missing another option?
There you go. In bold is the beginning of your CL ad text.
The other option I don't see listed yet... how about diagnosing the problem? On more than one occasion, I have scooped up someone's project only to find it was a loose wire or a bad sensor. "Bad transmission" could be $4000 worth of clutches, pump, and valve body, or it could be 3 cents for a crimp connector, or $1 for a shift cable bushing that fell out. It should have an RE5R05A. On that vintage of NIssan, believe it or not, the problem can actually be a trashed motor mount. It lets the transmission move which crushes the wiring harness and shifter cable.
I bought a 62 Cadillac for $1500 because it wouldn't run. I paid the guy $1500, put the distributor cap back on, and drove it home. He was not happy.
Thanks Curtis. If I was more like you guys, into wrenching, I'd put a junkyard transmission in it. Right now, it is sitting in one spot of my two car garage. It does have fluid on the floor under the engine, I assume from the mechanic not putting a new gasket on the transmission pan when he put it back together. My mechanic quoted $4,500 for the transmission repair. Not happening thus the replacement already purchased and brought home last night. Anyway, I have a 06 Titan that I plan on swapping the newer tires from the armada. I just need to get the armada on jack stands and take the wheels in. 4000 pound armada sitting on four jack stands is safe, right?
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