Need some advice. Speaking in behalf of my girlfriend's family, my girlfriend's younger sister recently got into a car accident, and needless to say, our Civic didn't come out so well when it collided with a bus. The rear frame is all bent and messed up; the left rear tire on the car is not even straight anymore. The worst part in all of this is that we only had liability insurance on the sister, so any repairs would come out of our own pocket. We got an estimate from a body shop, and it would be ~$6000.00 to fix it up...after looking up the car on KBB, a near mint Civic of that year with that mileage would be only worth $9500.00 anyways. So we've decided not to fix it. I've looked up donating the car to charity, but besides that what other viable options are there? Is it possible to salvage parts and sell them? We're not too car savvy so to speak, so any advice would be well appreciated. Thanks!
we did salvation army on ours. they reuse them to teach people about automobiles or something like that... here's the site. i think you get a tax refund too. http://www.salvationarmyhouston.org/adult_rehab.htm
Think that was a thing of the past. IRS has made it harder for you to claim tax reduction on donated car.
Donate it. You get a hefty tax deduction that would probably be worth more than what you could get for selling the parts. It would be a lot easier as well. You jsut tell them when and where and that's it.
It is harder but you still get a deduction. You used to be able to just ask for a reciept from the non-profit you donated the car and as long as the reciept was for the blue book value or less the IRS usually didn't look twice at it. Now you have to wait for them to sell it and then they can give you a reciept for what they sold it for and then they can give you a reciept.
Yep. That's why a salvaged car (or a car to be salvaged) can hardly earn you anything if you donate it, unless the charity makes repair out of their own pocket and then sell it.
Just to give a quick update: I found a Honda Salvage Yard...and based on the phone conversation, they'll be willing to pay around $2000 for it (cost of towing and overhead paperwork included). Plus they'll give us back our tires (which are about only a month old). Any thoughts on this? It sounds like a pretty good deal, but I guess this would count as earned income when taxes come around....
Send it to an auto auction and let salvage dealers bid on it. Sounds like your car is a "re-builder" for a place like Joe's Used Auto who charge 20% in house financing. It is still an attractive car as long as the title is clear. Check out: https://www.iaai-bid.com/aucbranchinfo.aspx?branch=456 http://www.bcapauction.com/ http://www.copart.com/facility/011index.htm If you want, contact these salvage dealers directly and they can give you a bid: Wayne's Foreign Auto (281-446-9200) Absolutely Foreign Auto ((713) 991-5690) All-Toyota (713-699-3300) All Foreign Auto (281) 260-0274) Whatever you do, don't disassemble the car and try and sell the parts yourself. You will greatly reduct the overall salvage value by doing so.
