Is a 1993 Subaru Legacy station wagon worth anything for parts? Or should I just donate it? Doesn’t run, has rust, but under 150000 miles.
In view of the age and the corrossion, I would sell it for parts. You don’t want to donate this car and have someone kill himself by having the body collapse on him. Where I live excessive rust will result in the DOT condemning the car and refusing to license it.
I have driven 2 cars to the scap yard that had their bottoms rusted out to the point where they were not safe anymore.
Bad body + bad engine = donate (or sell to junkyard)
Under current tax law, you can only get a deduction (not a credit) based on the price the charitable agency sells the car for, and it must be a registered charity. A nonrunning vehicle this age in this condition won’t yield you a tax benefit. But if you can find a willing recipient to donate it to, do for altruistic purposes.
“Parting it out” never works for an individual. You’re simply not tied into the used parts marketplace the way the boneyards are. Nobody will seek you out.
If it were mine I’d call one of those “we’ll tow it for free” numbers and let them haul it away.
Check around for a buyer. Around here, people offer $400 to $600 for anything, whether it runs or not.
You can list it on craigslist as a non-running parts car, buyer must take entire car, no parts sold…If that does not work, there are junkies who will pay you a few bucks for it and come and haul it away…Try for $200-$300
@Bradster
Donate the car to your local npr affiliated radio station for a tax write off
Get rid of the car AND feel good about it
Win-win
Or see if a local high school auo shop would like it. The Subie flat engine is different than anything else they’re used to dealing with, and the details of the awd system are more elaborate than typical on a Subie. Even if it’s nothing more than a demonstration piece, they might be interested.
@MarkM–This old Subie might or might not have AWD, as it did not become a standard feature until–IIRC–1996. However, with or w/0 AWD, it would still make for a good educational device for a school’s auto shop.
Most or all of the auto shop programs have been cut in my area.
To the best of my knowledge, only the county-run vocational schools still operate their auto shop programs in my area.
In the high school where I worked, the auto shop program was shut down…probably some time in the early '90s. I think that the school was looking for an excuse to eliminate it, and when the new auto shop teacher turned out to have…limited…automotive knowledge and that he allowed the kids to run wild in his class, that was the death knell for our auto shop.
My first clue about his limited knowledge was after he cut the roof off of his 4-door '59 Caddy in order to make it into a convertible, and I asked him if he could put it up on the lift so that I could see the frame modifications that he had made. He gave me a blank look. When I explained why he would need to “beef-up” the chassis in order to resist torsional stress, he looked even more blank.