“Broken” is not one thing, and different failures do very different things to what a car is worth. Here is what each one actually costs you.
Blown or Seized Engine
The failure people assume is fatal. It is not.
A dead engine lowers the offer, but the transmission, axles, wheels, body panels, glass, seats and electronics are all untouched, and so is the metal. On a compact sedan, that leaves you in the lower part of the range. On a full-size truck or SUV it barely moves you out of the middle, because so much of the value sits in components other than the engine.
Failed Transmission
Often worth more than a blown engine, and this surprises people.
A failed transmission usually means the engine is healthy — and the engine is the single most valuable recoverable component on most vehicles. So a car parked for a transmission is a car with its best part intact.
The exception is a CVT. Nissan’s CVT, and the Ford PowerShift, have weak used demand precisely because they are not reliable. Nobody wants to install a used one. That pulls the number down more than a conventional automatic failure would, and we would rather say so here than surprise you at the kerb.
Electrical Faults
The cheapest failure to sell into and the most expensive to chase.
A car with a dead body control module, a wiring fault nobody can trace, or an immobiliser that will not recognise its own key can be genuinely unfixable at any sane cost. But the mechanical parts are unaffected and the metal is the metal. Electrical faults barely register in what we pay.
Failed Emissions
No effect on the offer at all. Emissions testing exists to authorise a car for road use. We buy for recycling and parts recovery, so the result is irrelevant to the value.
Plenty of people park a car after a failed test assuming it is now worthless. It is worth exactly what it was the day before.
Collision Damage
Depends heavily on where and how bad.
Front-end damage tends to hurt more, because it takes out the radiator support, headlamps and often the engine bay. Rear and side damage leaves the drivetrain untouched. A late-model vehicle with repairable collision damage is the highest-paying category we handle — undeployed airbags, LED headlamp assemblies and electronic modules all carry substantial value.
Rust
Affects the offer far less than sellers expect. Body rust, rotted rockers and wheel arches are cosmetic to us. What matters is whether the drivetrain is present and complete. A salted-out Chicago car with a full drivetrain outpays a clean shell that has already been stripped.
Frame rot is a bigger deal for driving safety than for value — and in trucks like the Tacoma, the drivetrain demand is strong enough that a rotted frame still pays well.
What Not to Do First
Do not repair it. The spend almost never returns itself in what we can pay. The single genuine exception is a replaced catalytic converter.
Do not part it out. Stripping the good bits and selling them individually looks better on paper than it works out in practice, and every part you remove reduces what the vehicle is worth as a whole.
What We Pay
| Vehicle type | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Compact sedan, 2000–2010 | $500 – $900 |
| Midsize sedan, 2005–2015 | $600 – $1,400 |
| SUV or crossover | $700 – $2,200 |
| Full-size pickup | $900 – $3,500 |
| Late-model, rebuildable damage | $2,500 – $15,000 |
Call (773) 939-3333 and tell us what failed. You get a firm number on the call.
Licensed ILICC #224719 · 4.4 stars across 543 Google reviews · free towing, 6 AM to 9 PM.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sell a car with a blown engine?
Yes. A dead engine lowers the offer but does not remove the value: the transmission, axles, body panels, wheels, electronics and the metal all still count. On a truck or SUV a blown engine still leaves the vehicle in the middle of its price range, because so much of the worth sits elsewhere.
What is a car with a bad transmission worth?
Usually more than people expect, because a failed transmission normally means the engine is fine — and the engine is the single most valuable recoverable component. The exception is a CVT, where used demand is weak and the drop is larger.
Do you buy cars with electrical problems?
Yes. Electrical faults are among the most expensive things to diagnose and among the least damaging to scrap value. The mechanical parts are unaffected and the metal is the metal.
My car failed emissions. Does that lower the offer?
No. Emissions testing governs road registration. We buy vehicles for recycling and parts recovery, so the test result has no effect on what it is worth to us.
Is it worth repairing before selling?
Almost never. The repair cost on a car at this stage nearly always exceeds the increase in what we can pay. The one genuine exception is a replaced catalytic converter, because the converter is among the highest-value components we recover.