Many of us will at some time own a vehicle that will come to the end of its useful life and the only way to dispose of it is to a scrap yard or parts breaker. So how do you get the best price for this scrap car? Are there any tips? Or should you just take what you can get and feel lucky?

The answer is knowing the demand for the spare parts that will be reclaimed from the vehicle when going through the scrapping process. This is how the potential buyers of your old car will make money, by stripping it down and selling off the individual parts. If they make the right buying decisions by purchasing the right cars that have the parts that are under demand form owners of the same model, they make a profit, if they don’t they  could lose money on the vehicle, because there are aspects of scrapping a vehicle that cost money, especially associated with chemicals and plastics.

So try and calculate what parts are in demand by looking on sites such as Ebay, gumtree, Wish etc. And sites that will list used parts. Then compare the price of parts from your vehicle with other vehicles.

So for example, if an example engine for your car is being sold on Ebay for half as much as another engine form a similar sized car, here lies a hint that the parts within your vehicle are not worth as much as others. So in this case you should not expect to be offered much for your scrap car. So the opposite is also true and the good news in this example. If your comprisable engine is being sold on Ebay for twice as much, maybe you should expect more in return when you sell.

So to get the best price whilst selling, consider researching what certain parts are worth and mention them to the buyer. Both to remind him what kind of profit he could make, but also to reaffirm you are not going to be conned to believe your vehicle is worthless, when you have proof it isn’t.

You can also try out certain online sites like  www.scrap-car.co.uk to get a free quote for your vehicle. When you do so, write a list of all the positives of the vehicle. For example, alloy wheels, low mileage, great driver and clean interior good be good examples to drive the offer price up. If a breaker yard has a buyer for the interior of the car you are scrapping, then they may be in a position to offer you a great quote, to get that car quickly.

There may be certain this that you could sell separately, to gain that extra buck. For example, the CD player, dog guards or additional accessories could be sold separately.  If you are really brave the most common types of parts in demand, are door mirrors and bumpers.