Any rule of thumb when buying car for a partout?

[DarkWing6]

Buy one that was a rollover, t-boned, or rearended IMO. I have never parted a car, but something that has bad upfront damage (enough to part it) would make me wonder about the condition of a lot of pricey stuff up there.

[hugh jass]

So how do you get rid of it once you've parted it, assuming it has no suspension?

you usually have to junk the title at dmv if you want to be legit, and then cut the shell up with a sawzall and take it to a scrap yard and make $40.

[Funkmasta]

So how do you get rid of it once you've parted it, assuming it has no suspension?

Varies by state

[JasonC]

So how do you get rid of it once you've parted it, assuming it has no suspension?

I allways waited to take the suspension out last when it's on the trailer. I parted out a few cars but keep most of the parts for myself. And a good rule to follow is to make sure that the people aren't cheaper then the car that you are parting out. Scrap yards around here don't require for the car to have a title, but they would like to see a vin tag on it, and a hole in the gas tank or the tank compleatly removed.

[JGood]

Whoever said you can't make $7-8k on an e30 has never parted out e30's. Yeah you can't go buy a $10 piece of absolute shit with no options and expect to get over $4k for it. but a decent e30 that has some body damage or a blown trans or something, you can easily get 5k.

There is a difference between a business and an individual trying to sell some parts. There's also a difference between an indivudual trying to get rid of stuff for some cash and an individual who is in no hurry and has plenty of storage space, and wants to make some real money.

I do not have an official business, but I did make a website, spread the word to everyone I know, and try to make it my priority, and I can tell you 7-8k is very reasonable for a nice e30. Buy it for $1k, turn $6-7 profit. And it's fun work if you ask me.

The things that add up are things you never think about being worth anything, that some pople just need and will pay good money for. Don't throw anything out or damage anything. There's thousands of parts that make up a car.

The farther you strip it down, the more money there is to be made. Think about it. Say there's 5,000 parts to make up a car. If you made $1 on each part, you would make $5k. When's the last time you saw an e30 part sell for under $1?

[DEV0 E30]

So how do you get rid of it once you've parted it, assuming it has|or doesn't have suspension?

Cliff.

[dirty30]

parting is a big PIA, the best way to do it IMO is to get a mini storage unit just for hiding bodies..... i mean keeping the parts dry/ accessble/ not cluttering up your home...

my two cents

[Rigmaster]

Whoever said you can't make $7-8k on an e30 has never parted out e30's. Yeah you can't go buy a $10 piece of absolute shit with no options and expect to get over $4k for it. but a decent e30 that has some body damage or a blown trans or something, you can easily get 5k.

There is a difference between a business and an individual trying to sell some parts. There's also a difference between an indivudual trying to get rid of stuff for some cash and an individual who is in no hurry and has plenty of storage space, and wants to make some real money.

I do not have an official business, but I did make a website, spread the word to everyone I know, and try to make it my priority, and I can tell you 7-8k is very reasonable for a nice e30. Buy it for $1k, turn $6-7 profit. And it's fun work if you ask me.

The things that add up are things you never think about being worth anything, that some pople just need and will pay good money for. Don't throw anything out or damage anything. There's thousands of parts that make up a car.

The farther you strip it down, the more money there is to be made. Think about it. Say there's 5,000 parts to make up a car. If you made $1 on each part, you would make $5k. When's the last time you saw an e30 part sell for under $1?

I've parted out a BUNCH of E30's, and to say you can expect to make $7-8k on parting out your average E30 is BS.

I'm sure there are exceptions and it CAN be done, but to make it sound like it can be done all the time is crap.

Ebay for one has brought the used BMW parts prices down, especially E30 parts.


Bret.

[smooth]

Unless you want to make it your business, or you have free storage/unlimited time, I would only personally part out a car if I needed some big ticket items (and that's actually the path I'm about to take this weekend).

If you wanted an engine, a rare diff, sport seats, bumpers, or a good vert top for example. The mechanical stuff is a crap shoot, on top of that, unless you're a mechanic and willing to do a pre-sale inspection and/or dump labor into it.

You can look at the seats and bumpers for damage. How can you visually inspect a diff or engine on a car? At best you could open them up and look at the diff or turn the motor. Feel the tranny. Who knows what you might do, but whether you actually get a good "deal" would depend on your skill at detecing [potential] problems.

I think the figures being quoted to you are pie in the sky. I'm not suggesting that funkmaster hasn't sold an engine for $1200, I'm just curious how often he is able to swing that. Seems to me that even he admitted that was a one-time deal based on low mileage, business presence, and an eager buyer. Good luck reproducing that on your own if you're just looking to hobby over the summer. Even he could have been screwed had the low mileage engine come up with a blown head gasket...and he didn't tell you the labor it needed to make it sellable...or to pull it, for that matter. Someone else does the labor==$$$; your time also == $$$. You can't think of it as you have more time than money...if you want to "make" money you have to figure in transport, storage, disposal, and labor costs.

I'm not even sure there are "5,000" parts on an e30...not counting nuts and bolts. Even if there are, I'm not going to argue the point, imagine how long it would take to undo a car bolt by bolt and sell each piece like that.

It seems to me that if you're going to do this one time, or as a hobby for a few months of boredom, or you need a big ticket item that you can score from a decent car and still have some desirable stuff left, that you should just add up the things you know would sell (and not prices based on what someone was able to get once, and not even the [mean] average (which is what funkmaster just quoted you, and is susceptable to outliers), but rather the LOW of the prices. That is, figure $400 for a complete good engine and if you make more good on you. But you want it to move, you're competing with established sellers, and you don't want to figure too high and run the risk of losing money.