Are you tired of letting a junk car take up valuable space outside of your home? If so, you should consider parting ways with it for good at some point in the near future. But before you do, you should ask yourself the question, “How much money can I get for my junk car?” It’ll help you decide once and for all if you want to sell your car for cash.
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It can be a little tricky trying to put a price tag onto a junk car. If you were to call around to 10 different junk car buyers, there is a decent chance that each and every one of them would provide you with a different amount of money that they would pay you for your car. But you should be able to at least estimate what the answer to the question, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”, would be.
Continue reading to find out all about the various factors that are going to impact the answer that you come up with when you wonder, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”
How Much Money Can I Get for My Junk Car?
OK, so as we just alluded to, there are a bunch of factors that are going to come into play when you’re trying to answer the question, “How much money can I get for my junk car?” You’re going to want to consider each of them prior to attempting to put a price tag on a junk car. Here are the 9 factors that you should keep in the back of your mind while coming up with a value for your junk car.
1. The Location of Your Junk Car
In theory, you might not think that the location of your car would matter much in terms of how much it’s worth. You might be under the impression that a car in a small town in Arkansas is worth the same amount of money as the same car in a big city in New Jersey. But this isn’t always the case!
If you live in a very large city with a handful of different junk car buyers operating in it, it could result in the value of your car going up. You’re going to get slightly higher answers when you call around and ask, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”
The reason for this is that all these different junk car buyers are going to be competing with one another to purchase your junk car. As a result, the offers that they make you are going to be slightly higher than they might be in a much smaller city that only has one or two junk car buyers.
You might want to do a quick Google search for “junk car buyers near me” to see how many names pop up. You’re going to be in luck if you see a whole bunch of them appear.
2. The Age of Your Junk Car
Another thing that you’re going to want to consider when you find yourself asking, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”, is the age of your car. Generally speaking, you’re going to be able to get way more money for a car that’s on the newer side than one that is old and on its last legs.
That being, that isn’t always necessarily going to be the case! If you happen to own an older car that is relatively rare or if you happen to own an older car that is still very popular today, there could potentially be a big demand for the parts from it! Because of this, you could still get paid top dollar for a car that is on the older side.
At any rate, you should know exactly how old a junk car is prior to selling it. It’ll give junk car buyers an opportunity to provide you with a more accurate offer when you ask, “How much money can I get for my junk car?” It’s very easy to find out what year your car is by using the VIN number on it.
3. The Make and Model of Your Junk Car
Arguably the most important factor when it comes to answering the question, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”, is going to be what make and model car you have. At the end of the day, this is going to be one of the first things junk car buyers ask for because it’s going to help determine what they’ll pay you for your car to a large degree.
Now, just so that we’re clear, junk car buyers aren’t always looking for fancy, luxury cars like you might think. While they will buy these cars from you, they’re typically more interested in tracking down junk cars that are popular makes and models so that they’ll know there is a strong market for the parts inside of them.
If you have a junk car made by an auto manufacturer like Honda or Toyota that has a reputation for producing high-quality parts that last for a long time, this will also be a big bonus for you. You’re going to like what you hear when you ask, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”, to a junk car buyer.
4. The Mileage on Your Junk Car
Remember when cars only used to last for 100,000 miles or so? Unless you really went above and beyond while maintaining an older car, you weren’t going to be able to push it much further than that. But that has all changed in recent years as cars have started to last longer and longer.
Today, it’s not all that uncommon for old cars to last for 100,000 miles, 150,000 miles, and sometimes even 200,000 miles or more. And while this is going to be a great thing for you on the front end, it’s not going to be that great when you go to sell a junk car one day.
The reason being, a car that has 200,000 miles on it isn’t going to have many parts in it that are going to last much longer. It’s going to make the car so much less valuable than it would be otherwise. It’s why you’re going to be better off selling a junk car with fewer miles on it as opposed to 200,000 miles or more.
5. The Condition of the Exterior of Your Junk Car
A junk car buyer is usually going to be able to tell a whole lot about your car and what you’ve done to maintain it simply by looking at the exterior of it. They might be concerned about what your car looks like under the hood if they look at the outside of it and see:
- Dents
- Scratches
- Rust
- Hail damage
- Fading
In reality, the condition of the exterior of your car isn’t really going to affect a junk car buyer that much. They’re not going to be paying you based on what your car looks like on the outside. They’ll be way more interested in what’s going on inside of it.
But as we just mentioned, a car that looks like crap on the outside tends to have a lot of bad things happening on the inside of it. It could very well result in you getting less than you may have hoped for when you call on a junk car buyer and say, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”
6. The Condition of the Interior of Your Junk Car
Outside of checking out the exterior of your car, a junk car buyer is obviously also going to want to know about the condition of the interior of it. And we’re not just talking about the actual interior of your car where you and your passengers sit!
We’re also alluding to what’s going on underneath your hood. You shouldn’t have too much trouble selling a junk car if it stalls out a lot, if it’s leaking fluids, or even if it doesn’t start at all. Junk car buyers aren’t going to be too worried about these things.
But they are going to take note of any major repairs that might need to be made to a vehicle. These repairs could affect the profit that they can turn with your car, and it could lead to them making you a much lower offer when you ask, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”
You could see the price of your car go down if it has:
- Engine problems
- Transmission issues
- Exhaust system malfunctions
As we just said, you can still sell your car with these things. But you might have to temper your expectations with regard to what you’re going to get for a car with issues like this.
7. The Parts Left in Your Junk Car
Have you spent the last few years pulling old parts from your car and either selling them or using them elsewhere? We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is almost always going to take a big toll on the answer to the question, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”
One of the reasons why junk car buyers exist is because they’ve found ways to turn the parts in scrap cars into profits. Some of the most valuable parts in a junk car include:
- Catalytic converters
- Airbags
- Engines
- Tires and rims
- Batteries
With this in mind, you’re going to run into a problem if you go to sell a junk car that doesn’t have any of these parts left in it. Junk car buyers aren’t going to see much value in your car, and they might even refuse to buy your car altogether if they don’t have a good enough reason to do it.
8. The Current Price of Scrap
If you spend a few months mulling over the question, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”, one thing you should know is that the answer is probably going to change all the time. Why? Well, it’s because the price of scrap is always going up and down at any given moment.
If the price of scrap happens to be on the higher side right now, a junk car buyer might be happy to give you more than you would expect to get for your car because of it. But if the price of scrap takes a nosedive, it could force you to want to wait a little while to scrap your car.
You should keep a close eye on the price of scrap to see where it stands before asking any junk car buyers, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”
9. The Junk Car Buyers in Your Area
The junk car buyers in your specific area are different from the junk car buyers in another one. They might be more aggressive when it comes to making offers to people, or they might be a little bit more laidback and less likely to give you their strongest offer right away since they’re not in any hurry to overpay for a car.
Whatever the case, you’re going to have to gauge where your local junk car buyers stand and find out which ones will give you the highest offer when you ask, “How much money can I get for my junk car?” It might all be a matter of staying patient and finding the right junk car buyer for the job.
See How Much Money You Can Get for Your Junk Car Now!
Do you have a junk car that you want to sell? If you do, stop spending all your time wondering, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”, and reach out to Cash Cars Buyer today to get an offer!
We’ll make it extremely easy for you to get your hands on an offer in a short period of time. All you have to do is fill out our form and provide us with some basic information about your car, like the make and model of it, the year it was made, and more. We’ll take it from there and work on getting you an offer in a hurry. It’ll then be up to you to decide if you want to arrange to have us come and pick up your junk car in exchange for cash.
Would you like to ask us, “How much money can I get for my junk car?”, on the phone? Contact us today to learn more about what your scrap car may be worth.