Should I scrap my car? Eight signs it is time

Nobody scraps a car they love while it still works. The decision usually creeps up: a repair here, an advisory there, and then one bill that makes you stop and do the sums. Here are the signs that a car has reached the end of its economic life, and what to do about it.

1. The repair costs more than the car is worth

The simplest test. Look up what your car would sell for privately with a fresh MOT, then compare that to the garage's quote. If the quote is higher — and on a car over twelve years old it often is — repairing it means spending money you will never see again. A scrap valuation gives you the other number you need for the comparison.

2. The MOT failure list is long, not just expensive

One big item can be worth fixing. Six small ones rarely are, because they tell you the whole car is worn: bushes, brake pipes, exhaust, tyres, bulbs, wipers. Fix them all this year and a similar list turns up next year.

3. It is rusting where it matters

Surface rust on a wing is cosmetic. Rust on the sills, floor, subframe mounts or chassis legs is structural, it is an MOT failure, and it is expensive to weld properly. Once a car is rotting underneath, it is on borrowed time.

4. It has not moved in months

A car left standing deteriorates faster than one being driven: brakes seize, tyres flat-spot, seals dry out, the battery dies. If it has been sitting since last winter, the cost of getting it back on the road has been quietly rising the whole time.

5. It is costing you tax and insurance for nothing

Tax and insurance on a car you are not using is money in the bin. If it is declared SORN and uninsured it is at least not costing you anything — but it is not earning anything either, and it is still worth its weight in metal.

6. Parts are getting hard to find

For some older or less common models, a single unavailable part can end the car. If the garage is talking about breakers' yards and waiting lists, the writing is on the wall.

7. You would not trust it on a long journey

A car you plan every trip around, that you would not take on the motorway, is not really working as a car any more.

8. Nobody wants to buy it

If it has been advertised for weeks with no serious interest, the market is telling you something. Scrap value, by contrast, is guaranteed: the car is worth its weight whatever anybody thinks of it.

What a finished car is still worth

Most cars fetch between £150 and £400 as scrap; larger vehicles more. That figure is based on weight and today's metal price and does not depend on the car looking good or starting. Enter your registration and you will have a number in thirty seconds, which is the cleanest way to end the dithering.