What To Do: Old / Junker Car
 

Hi RS,

So my father-in-law has a 2004 Chevy Venture van that has a blown head gasket, burns oil like crazy, consumes an unnecessary amount of gas ($20/week) and recently, the starter and alternator failed. There are probably a tonne of other issues, but you get the idea.

What are his options to get rid of this car, be it for cash or a tax refund? Car is located in East Van. If you want to be a hero and enjoy working on broken and awful cars, this is for you (looks at trollface.) Thanks in advance!

Edit: Tires are original lol

I think you can donate it to foundations that give you a tax receipt. Either BC cancer foundation or the Kidney Foundation both will take your old cars away and give you a equivalent tax receipt.

trade it in for ev :troll:

Buy a Ebike, i think you get credit.

Scrap it ... and get incentives like bus pass, credit for EV or Hybrid, car share credit, $750 off for an electric bike ...

https://scrapit.ca/

I remember doing this a long time ago and selling the monthly bus passes off on CL ...and one time, selling bike credit to someone at discount ...

If you're going to donate it, you should fix all the problems first. Otherwise you're just donating someone your garbage in the hopes that someone else will donate the repair bill.

Turn it into LeMons race car

For sure the car will not win as it won't start. :D

Bomb start it and bring it to the Gambler 500.

You don’t put time/money into something you’re going to scrap. These programs are in place for a reason.. FailFish

They just Auction the cars anyway, they don’t spend money fixing them

You don't donate your garbage to charity because you don't want the hassle of dealing with it. That is fucking classless

Classless ? Are you donating your wife’s Chanel purse or your fancy supreme clothing or are you just donating your trash stuff that you don’t want ? Don’t get on a high horse here. That’s the basis of these foundations. Taking in stuff people don’t want so at least they can do something with it better than what dukes in-laws are doing with it currently.

I say good on them if they even have the thought of donation. Last thing we need is more people criticizing charitable acts as classless. Everything and anything helps. If the charity’s don’t want it, they won’t even take it.

It's not a high horse.. My wife works for a charity, and people try donating their garbage because it's too expensive to offload elsewhere. A lot of this stuff is expensive when new but basically worthless now, so they dump it off to a charity thinking to themselves that they're being helpful. Or some people just don't realize that they're not being helpful, which is why I posted that information.

If you want to donate, that's great. Get it fixed first, then donate it. Don't give someone your garbage because either it's too expensive to fix, or too expensive to discard.

If the charity has a deal with someone who will donate repair services, that's fine, and I can see some places relying on that. Don't assume it though. Nobody wants garbage, not even charities. A lot of the time you're costing them time and money rather than helping them out.

You guys can keep coming at me trying to make me feel bad, but this is something to consider. I think dukes is a considerate guy, and he won't do something like this without at least looking into it first.

Ummmm IIRC, when you donate your car to Kidney foundation etc., they tow your car away and get the proceeds from scrap metal worth. The cars don’t need to run because they’re going to end up in a junkyard. That catalytic converters is worth at least a hundred, maybe. The charities don’t intend to drive or restore the donated vehicles; that would be too much hassle and maybe a liability. It’s different from people dumping junk at those donation bins or Value Village.

I think you misunderstand. These charities have programs specifically FOR these sort of clunkers. They take them in any condition and they auction them off for whatever they can get (maybe scrap value, maybe more). They don't fix them.

I'd like to clear the air and set the record straight.

First and foremost, thank you to everyone who has responded to the thread. Any bit of advice or leads is helpful in enabling us to make an informed decision.

Secondly, I don't live in Vancouver anymore but my family and my in-laws are still here; We still visit often so we're not up to date in terms of what programs or benefits are avaialble when it comes to donating a non-operational vehicle.

Third - There was never any ill intention of donating a "junker" car to a charity where they'd have to fix it. I do recall some programs where they take the vehicle, dismantle it for whatever parts that may contain some value, sell fit off and you get either cash or a tax rebate or whatever it was.

I spent the month of September cleaning up my old room and came across a lot of old clothes and rather than let them end up in the landfill, we ended up washing them all, sorting them, and folded them and donated to Value Village. The folks there were extremely grateful for the donations and they taught me that a lot of people just dump whatever with them and it's never pleasant having to sort through all sorts of stuff. So I understand where Skinnypupp is coming from and he's not wrong.

If there was a position or opportunity where we could fix the car at a reasonable price, for sure, we would, and then donate the car as-is. I would never donate a non-operable car with the intention for the end user to have to end up fixing it (unless that's what they want to do) but it has to be to an individual or group who deserves it. Curber mechanic who will fix it up and resell it for a profit would not be a candidate for this sort of thing.

So I hope this clears the air. No harm done, no foul play. Let's keep it clean and keep the suggestions coming. I would say within a few weeks or by the end of the month, the car will likely be donated to a charity of some sort. Thanks!

I know in the past, you could potentially donate a car to a school for learning purposes. Give students something to work on and learn with. Note: The cars will never return to public streets, much like charity donation.

Though in 2022, I can foresee a lot of red tape interfering with this idea.

Yup I mentioned the possibility that someone else might be able to donate the repairs, such as a repair shop, or cash donations for that purpose etc. I hadn't thought of charities tearing the vehicles down and selling the scrap metal though. If there's charities that specialize in it, great!

I hope people understand where I'm coming from. I'm not just trying to be on a "high horse" or calling out anyone. I was just trying to show from 'the other side' that not all donations are helpful, and it's something dukes would have to keep in mind. From his post, it looks like he did already!

I'll try to be more careful with how I word my posts, I know sometimes they can come across as too blunt. I find this especially occurs in the mornings when I'm not really fully awake yet (which is why I'm killing time on message boards lol)