There’s a real case for parting a car out, and people who tell you it never pays aren’t being straight with you. There’s also a real cost, and it’s mostly time.
The comparison
| Scrap the car whole | Sell parts, then scrap the shell | Sell it as-is to a private buyer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Money | One offer, paid at pickup | Can total more, spread over weeks | Depends on finding a buyer who wants a project |
| Time | One call and one pickup | Removing parts, listing, meeting buyers | Listings, calls, test looks |
| Tools and space | None | Jack stands, tools, a garage or driveway you can tie up | None |
| Paperwork | Title or other proof, two IDs | Same at the end, plus receipts for parts | Title transfer to the buyer |
| Village rules | No issue once it’s gone | A stripped car in view can draw a notice | Same as any parked car until it sells |
When parting out makes sense
You have a garage, the tools and some free weekends. The car is a common model, so there are buyers for its parts. And it’s newer, or has parts in demand: a low-mileage engine, a good transmission, clean body panels in a popular color, an intact interior.
If that’s you, pull the parts that sell fast and come off easily, sell them, and then scrap what’s left. We’ll still buy the shell. Just tell us what’s gone so the offer matches.
When it doesn’t
The car is old, high-mileage or rusty, so its parts are worth little more than their weight. Or you don’t have covered space. Or you need the driveway back this month.
The space question is bigger in the suburbs than people expect. Village codes around Crestwood restrict exactly the thing parting out creates:
- Crestwood limits an owner’s repairs on their own car outside a building to three consecutive days, and treats an inoperable car in public view for seven days or more as a nuisance.
- Hickory Hills bans keeping an undrivable, disassembled or stripped vehicle anywhere except inside an enclosed garage.
- Palos Heights requires unregistered and inoperable vehicles in residential districts to be garaged.
Those are just three of the towns we cover. The full side-by-side is in inoperable car rules for the southwest suburbs.
What not to pull
The catalytic converter. Illinois law, as amended effective January 1, 2025, makes it a violation for anyone except an automotive parts recycler or scrap processor holding a state license to sell a converter that isn’t attached to a vehicle. Leave it on, and it stays part of the car’s value. The details are in our guide to a missing catalytic converter.
Also leave alone anything that holds fluid, such as fuel and air-conditioning lines. Fluids are drained at processing, which our guide on what happens to a scrapped car describes.
How partial stripping changes the scrap offer
Every major part you remove takes its value with it: the metal it’s made of and whatever it was worth as a used part. Engines and wheels are the big ones. Our guide on how scrap car value works breaks down the inputs. If the car is a crash wreck rather than a parts donor, see wrecked and totaled cars.