A complete 89 GTU with 89,000 kms. I'm curious to know what parting out a complete rust free car could net me. He says the car is only firing two plugs. I'm going to buy it regardless because it has the same engine/interior as my car but I was wondering how much I'd make back after using the parts I need (interior vents and FTP's and airbox).

Any estimation would be awesome. Even a vague price for drivetrain, engine and all body parts respectively.

 

$3.50

 

Grocer A sells his oranges for 25 cents.
Grocer B sells his oranges for 35 cents.
..Is this gonna take long???

 

The big ticket items for NA cars are typically aluminum NA hood, 5 lug conversion (hubs with calipers), S5 tail lights (with center section), S4 mechanical LSD, unbroken stereo surrounds and vents, rear seats, and vert BBS wheels. Those parts always seem to be in high demand and have good selling prices. The rest of it is death by a thousand $10 to $30 cuts as all cars are fairly commonly spec'ed. So it's people just needed a replacement part for something that's not working or missing on their existing vehicle. In Texas my personal break even point is in the $700 range for a non working car. At that price point though it better be a 5 lug and have at least one or two other items listed above. 4 lug cars I don't even mess with as the buy price is identical for non working cars down here. I sell the big items, pull off other commonly asked for items that don't take much space to store (wiring harnesses, ecu, injectors, pressure sensor, AFM, etc), remove all the aluminum bits to sell as scrap, and then just haul the rest or the carcass down to the salvage yard to get paid for scrap. I try to sell doors, fenders, bumpers etc but if they don't sell in a few weeks they all just go to the yard.

I typically keep engines and used to keep transmissions but once you've got three spares you've got enough. I break down the engines and store them unless there is blatant damage. i.e. cracked coolant passages, excessive gouging etc. You never know when someone will need a part and the community seems to be developing more ways to reuse what used to be marginal bits. It's not like they are making any new ones anymore.