94 Chev Cavalier, best price to pay?

Heres the deal: My brother has a Cav that got rearended recently. I havnt seen the car yet, but via my sister in laws facebook I learned they got two new vehicles, plus their Tahoe on top of it. My nephew blew up his sunfire a couple weeks ago, and they sold it to junkyard for $200. I got pissed, this is the second time he sold a car to the yard, after I told him if that was the route he was taking, to call me, I'd match the price or even beat it by a few bucks.

So i've been on my sister in laws @$$ about what their doing with this Cav. I don't have time to run by there for nothing (cuz I spend more time then I should, lol), because if their going to junk it, and if I can get it for around 150-200, I'm thinking a week or two of part-out ads on craigslist, cut the cat, peel the tires, and see what I can get outta it. I don't have alot of spare change, so whatever I invest in it needs to pay off.

So, my questions: What is a good price to pay for the car, whats a ballpark range on the cat, if the motor was pulled, would it sell? (Head gasket redone a year ago).

Also, say the cat was just cut off and tires and rims pulled off. What would approx. payout be on the body?

If the motor won't sell, should I pull as much of the engine apart as I can, for cast aluminum or even aluminum breakage, or just leave it in the car?



Any advice would be appreciated.

In my own experience, Sunbirds and Cavaliers of that age have often had the cat replaced already with an aftermarket, or just been straight-piped. Just something to keep in mind. If it's still the original cat, it'll be either a large GM or AC 4-dot, which up here currently sell for $88-$110. From the sounds of that head gasket(singular) being redone, it's a 4 cyl, so it would be the cheaper AC 4-dot cat. I also really doubt the motor would sell. Not many people go to the effort/expense of changing motors in cars that old, and that's a motor that doesn't have a lot of other applications. If anything, I would pull off the rebuilt cylinder head and try to sell that for a few $$. If it's a V6, I would pull the intake for some quick and easy aluminum, and that's about it.

Are the rims aluminum? For me, that's another $50-ish or so, which might justify paying a higher price.

As for the weight, I just hauled in a 94 2-dr that had a V6 auto. The car was also fully loaded with ac, pw etc. That all adds a few lbs. Less the cat, rims, rad (check, some are brass/copper and worth pulling, but most are aluminum), battery, and a few minor bits like alternator etc, it scaled out at 2380 lbs. Figure out a price going by what your yard pays for incomplete cars for that weight. Add up what the cat is worth, the rims/tires, battery etc, and deduct whatever you figure you need/want to make for profit on the car, and what you have left is the absolute most you should pay.

we do it about the same, we would give 200 to 225 for it no questions asked about the wheels and all, we just get happy when we see the wheels and cats like our little bonus. if you let them know too much they start wondering(im talking about general customers not familly you may or may not want to do more up to you) plus thats cheap enough to come out ahead wtih just the body, and like i said everything else is gravy. they done sold a sunfire to the junkyard for 200 basically the same car, they should sell it to you for the same. also when we go buy a car alot of times they will have taken the battery off, we usually dock them 10 bucks for that sometimes they find one pretty quick but id rather just get the 10 bucks off. we dont mess with motors and all we try to flip ours as fast as we can

best i would pay is 50-100 there a dime a dozen but ppl rarely want parts for them. and they only weigh 2500 lbs

mg good ideas !

we have a advertised min of 200 for a complete car, the closest we have came to being burned is on a geo metro. it was missing the battery so we docked them 10 bucks so 190, we crossed the scales with it and got 211. we was worried all the way to the yard. we figure if we can get away with a metro we can get away with anything. we still had the radiator, we also cut off the cat but it was empty. our yard pays 11.25 for car bodies complete or stripped, ive seen on here that some dock you for stripping a car. but if this was at our yard i would figure i would get 250 to 280 for a cavalier, and still have my radiator, battery, cat and alum wheels if it has them. 150 to 200 profits not bad for a couple hours work