Jayson writes:
Sajeev,
I have a couple of Q45’s that are ready for retirement. They have been great highway rides, but I just don’t have the time or desire to keep them running anymore. Since I no longer have time to wrench on them, parting them out is a no-go and neither is going to leave the driveway under their own power. My question is what is the best way to dispose of a dead car or two?
Should I just call a local wrecking yard or just sell them for scrap?
Call the “We need your used car” charities for a donation?
Sajeev answers:
Much like the beginning of one’s automotive journey at new car dealerships, shopping around for the best deal (or most karmic benefit) in your ride’s final resting place is very, very wise.
Case in point: a friend once donated a 1992-ish Pontiac Grand Am to a local Battered Woman’s shelter. I had wrenched on said vehicle, and while the oxblood interior and maroon paint was bleached out by Texas summers, it was a strong runner with cold A/C. I was proud of my friend for doing the right thing, hoping someone who needs a second chance puts this Pontiac to good use. And he got a decent tax donation for it.
As this (biased?) chart from Cars 4 Causes shows, there’s a benefit to donating your car outside of the moral goodness of your heart. But let’s get serious: we’re talking about Infiniti Q45s, not durable Rangers or desirable Civics.
They are not gonna find a new home that’ll love and cherish them. I’d post them as parts cars on craigslist: someone might need a Q45 parts car! Then consider donating to a charity, or scrapping outright. Question is: will you get more if you go straight to the junkyard and eliminate the middlemen?
Or, considering the car, does that even matter if the right charity tugs at your heartstrings? Off to you, Best and Brightest.
Send your queries to mehta@ttac.com. Spare no details and ask for a speedy resolution if you’re in a hurry.
Find a friend with a truck and trailer and take it to the junk yard. You can get $300 to $400 depending on the weight and the price of metals that day. If you call somebody to take it away, they’ll generally only give you $50 to $100.
The only writeoffs I’ve seen require the vehicles to be functional and are based on a somewhat honest valuation of the car you’re donating. And all the charities around here are actually pretty picky about what they’ll take since they (quite reasonably) don’t want to act as a convenient dumping ground for junkers. If they don’t run, don’t even waste your time.
Practically everything Inifiniti ever made was in the disposable category anyway. To the crusher!
Like M 1 said!
+1, M 1!
Damn, you said it way better than I did.
+1 indeed!
I would either sell them for 250-300 each (that’s the prevailing scrap vehicle price here) and donate the cash to your favorite charity or donate them to a charity who will auction them off. I did the latter with a smashed Bonneville and the charity did get about 150 out of the auction proceeds. You can find the ones who auction by asking them. St Vincent de Paul Society does it this way.
Trying to donate cars, running or not, for a tax donation is a questionable proposition if you’re in the tax bracket where these donations are phased out or zeroed out. If the charity gives you a blank donation slip, you can be sure the IRS will be watching.
Having done the “donate your car to charity” thing several times, let me advise that the rules have now changed. It used to be (ca. 2003) that you could pick a value for the car (e.g. Kelly Blue Book) and deduct that. Now, the charity actually has to sell the car and report back to you the proceeds from the sale. That is the amount you get to deduct as a donation.
AFAIK, no charity is interested in handling a donated car that is not roadable.
You can at a minimum deduct $500, which is threshold for reporting the value to the IRS. If the car is sold for $500 or less, the charity has to just check a box on the form saying it is below $500 without putting an actual value.
Post a short run classified on Craig’s List or in your paper of choice. Ask a little more than the scrap value. If someone bites, let them have it. If there is no interest by the time the add expires… then scrap yard she goes.
For maximum automotive karma this is the way to go. There may be someone out there that needs a few parts and pricing it $50 below scrap value saves you the headache and cost of getting it to the scrap yard and could give someone the parts they need to fix their car for little to no out of pocket expense.
With scrap prices so high many of the charities around here will take vehicles that only have scrap value so if you don’t want the cash give a few a call if you don’t find any takers through craigslist.
Is there no Q45 owners’ web site? You could throw up a few pix and make it clear you expect the prospective buyer to bring cash and haul away both cars.
Post them on Craigslist as parts cars that must be towed whole, price them above scrap value that day, failing that get a pickup truck and tow dolly and tow them to the junkyard. Just be prepared to get a lot of low-ball offers on Craigslist from people who are willing to give you half scrap value then tow it to the yard themselves.
Five bucks for three whacks with a bat or sledgehammer…
Yet another way to donate a car to charity.
Many organizations will have a fair, open house or other public gathering where fund-raising activities are held. One of the more unique is to have an intact, albeit old automobile roped off. Anyone with five bucks can have a go at it.
The local high school raises money this way every year.
Let the organization use your car for a couple hundred bucks. Or, see your tax advisor and figure out a value the government can live with and claim it as a tax-deductible donation. When the organization has finished with your Q, load it up on the trailer. As you’ll be selling it as scrap, a few dents, missing glass and a lack of signals and mirrors do not diminish its value in the least.
As luck would have it, these were picked up by a local pull-a-part last week.
They gave me $500 for both with no charge for pickup, avg selling prices in the classified was $850-1000 ea.
I called around to the local salvage yards and junk car buyers with very little interest, plus the towing costs would have eaten up most of the scrap value. The only outright offer was from a junkyard offering $100 for both. I’m guessing the pull-a-part dealer has a ready market for the parts, thus the higher offer.
After reading up on the tax code changes, I skipped the charity for cars idea.
Nicoclub.com is the internet spot for Infiniti owners, I was active there and it’s predecessor site for years but I’m just too busy to do my own wrenching anymore. My local moonlighting nissan tech was just not motivated enough to tackle the underhood hoses on either unit and they were leaking to the point of being one hot manifold away from a Car-B-Q.
I would have gone with making a V8 coffee table, headlight/taillight light fixtures, engine block wine rack, leather upholstered office furniture, and piston rod door handles.