Those of you familiar with my car situation (codell, R2K) will be happy to know that I am finally putting the 96 Blazer out to pasture and getting a new Honda CRV. The Blazer is currently at it's 2nd home (ie. in the shop) because it is overheating and they want to charge me $700 to fix the water pump. That is more than what I will probably get as a trade in value, so I told them not to fix it. So it's not really drivable and I'd like to donate it to charity and take the tax write-off instead of the $200 I'd probably get for trading it in. I hear those Houston Can Academy spots on 610, but I'm wondering if anyone here knows of any other places I could donate it to and get that tax write-off.
Yup, that's what I'm leaning towards. It's actually at the shop (Paynes Automotive) on Tidwell and Bingle. What kind of tax write-off would I get? Blue book value? More like Fart car...
My company does the write-ups for their donors. Usually full book retail unless we see any major prior damage.
I think they changed the law. It used to be Blue Book value, but now you get exactly what whoever you donated the car to sells it for. I think. I just checked and that's what it seems to indicate here: http://www.kidney.org/news/images/nkfcarflyerfull.jpg
Wouldn't the true value of the car be negative, since the repairs on the water pump are worth more than the resale value of the car? Unless Codell works some magic for you, LOL, it sounds like you should be paying taxes since the charity is going to take a loss off of your hands. They're the ones providing you value, not the other way around. I'd just go sink the thing in Buffalo Bayou
Its hardly magic. We figure repairs on a vehicle like this on a wholesale level (i.e. a used water pump is about $20-$30; labor isn't a factor since most wholesale buyers will do the work themselves).
Oh, ok. I was thrown off by your winky face in your previous post. I didn't know if the $700 repair number was accurate or not.
It is and is not accurate. You can go to 10 different shops and get 10 different bid amounts for that work. Thats why we figure it at a wholesale level (bare minimum for parts; no labor usually).
Yeah, you know how these shops do it. $650 in labor to replace a $50 water pump and clean a few hoses. I'm sure they saw my car parked in their lot Monday morning and automatically thought $$$$. It felt great telling them not to fix it! The car is not in bad shape, believe it or not. It's 10 years old but has less than 100K miles. I change the oil every 2,500 miles. It's just that, like most older cars, something goes wrong every 6 months or so, and I'm tired of pouring money into it.
I did this, but it was years ago...It helped my tax situation, so do this or sell it to the junk yard, which won't give you money...
