Sell my broken car in Glasgow

If your car will not start, has a warning light the garage wants a fortune to fix, or has just failed its MOT, you can sell it to us exactly as it is. Send the registration and a plain description of the fault, and we reply with a firm price. There is nothing to repair first and no charge for collection.

Because the car travels on a recovery truck, it does not need a working engine, and a car kept off the road on SORN needs no tax or MOT either. We pay by bank transfer, never cash, since cash for scrap vehicles is illegal in Great Britain. If an accident rather than a fault ended the car's life, our salvage page for Glasgow is the better fit.

Glasgow is roughly 105 miles down the A82 from our Fort William base, and we have no depot in the city. Collections across the city are grouped into scheduled runs, and the date is agreed when you accept the price. Tell us exactly where the car is parked, because street parking decides which truck we send. Postcodes, districts and how collection runs in Glasgow are on our Glasgow collection page.

Describing a broken car for an accurate price

Think about what a mechanic would ask. When did the problem start, and what happened just before: a noise, smoke, a warning light, a loss of power? Has it been diagnosed, and what did the garage find? Is it one fault, such as a slipping clutch or a failed turbo, or several at once? Photos of the dashboard with the ignition on, the engine bay and the MOT paperwork all help. For a car that has been standing, say how long it has been parked and whether the battery is flat. A fault confined to one part leaves the rest of the car's value intact, so the more precise you are, the better the price can reflect it.

When selling a broken car makes more sense than fixing it

A repair can make sense when the fault is cheap to fix and the rest of the car is sound. It makes less sense when the estimate is a large share of the car's value, when parts are hard to find, or when the MOT has also turned up corrosion or suspension work. Private buyers will knock money off for any known fault, so a repair does not always come back in full when you sell. Before deciding, ask a garage for a written estimate and send it to us with the reg. You can then compare a firm offer for the car as it stands with the true cost of fixing it, and choose with the numbers in front of you.

Preparing a car that will not drive

Collection is simplest when the recovery vehicle can pull up close to the car. Around Glasgow that might mean a driveway, a garage court, a workplace car park or the street outside your home. Let us know about narrow lanes, low bridges, barriers or a car boxed in by others. If it has been off the road for a while, check whether the tyres still hold air and whether the handbrake releases. Have photo ID, any keys you have and the V5C if you have it ready, and take out anything you want to keep. A car on SORN has to stay off the public road, so do not push it onto the street to make loading easier.

Read our full guide to selling a broken car, see how the WhatsApp quote works, or ask for a firm price.