JunkMyCar.com Review: A Fast Way to Sell Your Clunker

So that old jalopy of a car has finally called it quits. You don’t want to spend a lot of time placing an ad and then waiting for the prospective buyer to show. You just want to junk the piece and maybe make a few bucks in the process. The car served you well – but it’s time. You just want it out of your hair and the transaction to be completed as soon as possible. If this is your predicament – there is a website that can help.

JunkMyCar.com to the Rescue

Established in 2004 by Tim Yarosh – JunkMyCar.com’s aim has been to make the process easier for folks looking to off-load their junkers. While working in a family-owned junkyard, Yarosh wanted to make the whole transaction between seller and salvage yard more simple. What started out in a “closet-sized” office in Connecticut has now grown into a headquartered office in Austin, Texas – complete with a junk yard of salvaged cars. The site boasts of removing 50,000 cars – nationwide, every year.

How Does it Work?

I hadn’t heard of JunkMyCar.com until just recently. Upon visiting their site – you’ll be greeted with friendly, warm, earth-tone colors and “happy graphics”. As you see on the welcome page below – the site is easy to comprehend with a simple navigation bar on the left-hand side and a call-to-action at the top of the screen:

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All you need to do is answer a series of very short questions related to your junker:

• Year of vehicle
• Make
• Model
• Your zip code
• Short questions about the drivetrain
• Short questions about the exterior
• Short questions about the interior
• Short questions about the vehicles ownership

The whole process from the first question to the last took about 2-3 minutes. So, very easy and efficient. After the questions are answered, you’ll immediately be presented with an “offer” for your vehicle. Here’s what mine looked like (note: mine is still in working condition).

You can either decide to get a check from JunkMyCar.com when they show to pick-up your vehicle or have a check sent to you in the mail. That’s it – you’re done!

Is it Worth it?

The site makes it sound so easy that I’m left with the thought – “where’s the catch?” But, from reading some of their testimonials - JunkMyCar.com seems as easy to use at it appears on first inspection.

To be honest, I wish this service was around when my second junker car called it quits on me on the side of a highway in Southern Minnesota. Being a cash-strapped 20-something – the extra cash I might have gotten from JunkMyCar.com would have been a blessing (however small the offer might have been).

Instead,  I left the vehicle at an auto shop after they told me the repair was more than the vehicle’s worth. And not wanting to pay a huge tow fee to get the vehicle back into the metro area – I opted to forfeit the car to the auto shop (and I probably wouldn’t be surprised if that car was fixed up on their own dime and sold for a profit!).

With the government’s “Cash for Clunker’s” deal a few years back (which called for junker cars to be completely “trashed” – and could not be re-sold or scraped for parts) plus the economy still on the re-bound with folks looking to save money by buying salvaged vehicles and used/refurbished parts - JunkMyCar is in a hot market.

But is it worth it? From my point of view – it’s really dependent on each circumstance. To be honest, you could probably make more money selling your clunker yourself to a junkyard or another interested individual (via an ad or online – like Craigslist). But, for convenience sake – JunkMyCar.com is probably a good route to go. Sure, you might not get the full price you could otherwise – but you are going to skip the hassle of dealing with trying to sell it at a decent price and all the inconveniences that go with those transactions.

Have you ever used JunkMyCar.com – and if so – what has your experience been like? Leave a comment below!