What is my damaged car worth?

It’s no secret that used vehicles aren’t perfect. It’s also no secret that the average person doesn’t own a body shop. If you’re trying to sell your car on kijiji you’ll be asking yourself how to price your car. You have a prospective buyer come up and tell you it’s going to cost me ‘X’ amount to repair something and you’re not sure if they’re right. Here are the guidelines we use (based on what dealerships quote) for damage deductions.

These figures are based on costs of repair at dealerships. Obviously these are not exact figures and a lot of buyers may overlook these types of damages. These don’t account for any mechanical repairs as they range between makes and models.

Damage Estimates

• Window Chip – $100-400 (if windshield is needed as chip is in drivers line of vision)
• Cracked Windshield – $400+ depending on model
• Paint Chip – $350 per panel
• Scratch – $200 if paint has not been broken. $350 per panel if needs to be repainted.
• Bumper replacement – $500+ depending on make/model
• Dent – $150 per dent without crease. $500+ for a dent with a crease
• Smoked in – $500-$1000 without burn holes. Deduct $100 for every burn hole
• Stained upholstery – $300
• Curbed wheel – $150 per wheel
• Ripped upholstery – $300 per surface (a seat cushion is considered one surface)
• Excessively dirty interior – $350

Mechanical Estimates

If you are looking for estimates on mechanical requirements. There are many services generally available who can do remote inspections that run from $150-$200. You can also bring your vehicle for a pre-sale inspection to a mechanic who will give a report on requirements for safety inspections or beyond.

Accidents

The final part of deciding what kind of price you should ask for is if your vehicle has had an accident. Accidents, even after they have been repaired, will affect the vehicle’s resale value by an average of 30% of the claimed amount (ie $2000 claim = $600 reduction). In the event your vehicle was a total loss or holds a “rebuilt” status, the value will be diminished by 30-50% of the total vehicle value. This usually means big losses for people who own these cars, and big profits for the people that sold them to them. As a general rule, we advise people to stay away from cars with these titles.

In summary, being pro-active on damages and providing supporting documentation like CarProof reports and maintenance records will help you maintain your price when negotiating with buyers!

The estimations we’ve gathered here are based on our own trade-in deductions guideline for all our users on Flipped.ca.