Most “how much is my scrap car worth” pages hand you a calculator or a price list. Both give you a number. Neither tells you why that number is right or wrong for your car, and that’s the part that protects you from a lowball offer.
The four inputs
Every scrap offer, ours included, is built from the same four things.
| Input | Why it moves the offer | What you can check |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | Scrap metal is bought and sold by weight. Illinois even requires scrap processors to record purchases on a weight ticket. | The car’s curb weight, not the door-sticker GVWR. See finding your car’s weight. |
| Metal market | The price of shredded steel, aluminum and copper changes week to week. | Yard price boards show the trend, quoted per ton. See scrap prices per ton. |
| Completeness | Missing engine, transmission, wheels or catalytic converter means less metal and fewer sellable parts. | Walk around the car and list what’s gone before you call. |
| Reusable parts | Some parts sell for more than their weight in steel: a good engine, a transmission, body panels on a common model. | Year, model and mileage decide this more than anything you can fix. |
Weight: the starting number
A car is mostly steel by weight, with aluminum, copper, glass, rubber and plastic making up the rest. When a scrap car reaches a processor it gets weighed, and that weight times the going rate for that kind of scrap is the base the buyer works from.
Two practical points. First, the weight on the scale is the car as it arrives, so a car with no engine weighs less than the brochure says. Second, the number on the driver’s door label is usually not the car’s weight at all. It’s a rating that includes passengers and cargo, which is why we wrote a separate guide on it.
The metal market: the part nobody controls
Scrap prices follow demand from steel mills and metal buyers, and they move. A yard that posted one price in the spring may post a different one in the fall. That’s normal. It’s also why any website promising a fixed price for “any junk car” is either guessing or planning to adjust it when the truck shows up.
We don’t forecast prices, and we don’t publish a price list. We quote the car in front of us against what metal is worth that week.
Completeness: where offers really differ
Here’s the input that separates a fair offer from a disappointing one. Picture two 2008 sedans, same model. One is complete with a dead engine. The other runs, but someone pulled its catalytic converter and swapped its alloy wheels for steel spares. The dead one is worth more as scrap, because it still has all its material.
The pieces that count most:
- Catalytic converter. It holds platinum, palladium or rhodium, the metals Illinois law names in its own definition of a converter. A missing one is the biggest single drop. Our missing catalytic converter guide explains why we only buy converters still attached to a car.
- Engine and transmission. Heavy, and often partly aluminum.
- Wheels. Alloy rims are aluminum; steel rims are steel.
- Battery. Lead, and a small but real part of the total.
Parts worth more than their weight
For some cars the scrap metal is the floor, not the whole value. A newer car with a crash in the back may still have a good engine, transmission and front end that someone wants. Those parts can push an offer above pure metal value. An old car with high mileage usually doesn’t have that upside, and its offer sits close to its metal value. The trade-off of selling parts yourself is in scrap it or sell it for parts.
Scrap value, salvage value, parts value
These get mixed up constantly:
- Scrap value is what the car is worth as material, plus any parts a buyer will pay extra for.
- Salvage value is an insurance figure: what a damaged car is worth after the insurer pays a claim.
- Parts value is what you could get by selling pieces one at a time, before your time and the leftover shell are counted.
What doesn’t change our offer
Distance, within the towns we serve. Towing is free, and the cost of the trip isn’t taken out of the number. Also not counted: whether the car starts, how clean it is inside, and whether the paint is faded. A scrap buyer is pricing material and parts, not curb appeal.
To get a real number, use the form on this page with the year, make, model and title status, or call us. If the car doesn’t run, our page on non-running cars covers what to mention.