If you don’t want to sell your own car anymore, the only option is to have it scrapped. There are a few reasons why this might happen: You can’t sell the car because it’s too old, or it got into an accident and is now a total loss.
You can ask at some nearby scrap yards if someone wants your car, even if it’s a popular model or an old one with some good parts. A salvage yard will come and get the valuable parts for free if the car is no longer safe to drive. The salvage yard then takes the car apart and sells the parts online or at the yard itself.
Some salvage yards may fix up old cars so they can sell them again. This way, you can make a little more money off of the old car.
Scrap yards are also happy to take your old car and let their apprentices learn how to work on cars. You can usually expect to get a little money here, too. But owners of scrapyards like vintage cars the most because they can’t get parts for them anymore. There are even scrapyards that only deal with classic cars and sell parts for them to people who love them.
How much does it cost to scrap a car?
A good tip for this is to have the manufacturer lower the value of the old car, since they have to get rid of it by law. Of course, there are some cases where the legal duty doesn’t apply. For example, if your car has been registered for less than 30 days, has been taken apart, or doesn’t belong to the EU, the manufacturer doesn’t have to take care of it.
But the way the scrap yard figures out its prices makes pressing and taking apart the most important costs. Also, there may be a fee for collection added. After that, the scrap dealer will take the remaining value of your car and take away the total cost. This could be parts from the inside or engine, winter tires, body parts, and so on.
You will have to pay less to scrap your old car if it still has parts that can be used. People often leave the scrap yard with more than they came with. You can expect to pay about a hundred euros on average, but in reality, you rarely have to pay anything to scrap.
As a side note, it’s a good idea to ask fire stations if they want your old car. They might pay you for the car or just take it for free. Either way, your old car will be used for training, which is a good thing.
What papers do you need to scrap?
If you own the car, though, it’s easy. You only need the vehicle registration certificate in this case. If you don’t own the car, though, you need a power of attorney from the owner. In most cases, you also need the owner’s ID card. This is something that happens a lot at salvage yards, even though it isn’t against the law. Because of this, you should contact some scrap yards to find out what is important.
Also, it’s important to note that in Germany, only cars that are really ready to be scrapped are scrapped. This means that when you drop off your old car at the scrap yard, you will get a certificate of invalidation. However, this doesn’t mean that your car will be evaluated as scrap.
As was said before, you can’t scrap someone else’s car without a power of attorney. The same goes for cars that are linked to a crime.
It’s also very important to protect the environment when you scrap a car. So, before the car can be scrapped, all of the liquids must be taken out of it. Also, the different materials are kept apart so that they can be used in the best way possible. You will usually get some money from the whole process as a former driver. Because of this, it’s always a good idea to learn about everything ahead of time.