Getting in a car accident can truly be the pits. Often involved are hospital bills, possibly a police report, and depending on how bad the accident was, either a repair bill or having to scrap the car entirely due to it being totaled. For people in the latter group, however, many will ask just what is the best way for them to scrap their car, and honestly, the correct answer is going to depend on certain factors.
Determining the best way to scrap your car after it has been totaled in an accident
At some point, a vehicle is going to be of a level of quality where you cannot really justify keeping it around. Heck, you may even be stuck with a vehicle that is technically usable, but not at all safe to do so, nor worth repairing it in order to make it safe. It is especially true for a car that has been involved in an accident. So while you are dealing with an accident and injury lawyer, you can look into making that extra moolah. You could potentially sell it to someone who intends to take a junker vehicle and work on it as hobby in order to bring it up to an acceptable level of usability. However, this is not something that you can rely on, unfortunately, so if you cannot pull that off, scrapping is definitely your best bet. With enough time and patience, you should be able to get a decently fair deal for your vehicle’s value as scrap.
One of the big issues with attempting to maximize the amount of money you get out of your junked vehicle is that if you don’t have that time and patience, you may well be less successful in the end. Some people may not want to have to worry about it, while others simply do not need to worry about getting that extra bit of money, they would receive from looking for the right scrapper. They may find someone who is in truth undercutting you with their offer for your vehicle, but in the end, they do not want to find the one buyer who will give them the highest payout possible. That is important to consider when dealing with people trying to buy your scrapper — much like you are trying to get as much money as you can based on how much time and effort you are willing to put in, they are trying to get your scrapper for as low a cost as they possibly can. Compromise is certainly a valuable thing to consider when you are trying to sell off your vehicle, but at some point, you may just well have to move on to a different prospective buyer if the buyer does not give you a price that you consider fair. But if you ask for too much money, you may find that no one is going to be willing to pay that price.
Another thing you can consider is whether you want to sell your scrapper as an all-in-one deal or if you want to sell every part individually. This is a lot more time-consuming, but it is ultimately going to be a better value if you have the time to try. Each part is going to be worth more or less, mostly due to supply and demand. For example, a battery is not going to be worth as much as other parts of the car, although if it is a working battery, it will be worth more than if it was dead. Meanwhile, a global positioning system (GPS) is not only valuable (selling in the hundreds depending on how good it is), but it is also usually easy to uninstall from the vehicle.
There are a lot of steps to be taken during the process of actually scrapping your car, however. For example, it is important to recycle as much of the vehicle as you possibly can, thereby reducing your carbon footprint and also make sure you have all car accident evidence as well. Another hurdle that you will inevitably have to worry about is dealing with the title attached to the vehicle. When you do end up selling it to the person or organization that is going to scrap it, you have to make sure that the person who now owns it has the title tied to the vehicle. On top of that, having your title on hand makes it easier for the prospective buyer to know that this vehicle is legitimately your property. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone has tried to junk a vehicle that did not belong to them. You should also make sure that the vehicle no longer contains any property that you still own upon sale, as it would constitute abandonment if you do not remove it before the sale. It is your responsibility to remove these items, not theirs. Some states also require that you turn in your license plate when you scrap a vehicle, so be sure to remove both of them before doing so and returning them to the state.