I had a 7 year plan for my Miata, but I'm getting the itch already after only 4 years. I'd like to bail, but I'd take a wash on the ~$10k in mods I have in it. It'd be a great pickup for someone looking for a reliable dual-use track toy to learn on, but I've played this game before and never won. Is there any point in the market where it's possible to actually save some face on mods?
Part out the car. Return it to the best version of stock you can and sell everything else off on online forums.
I have actually had good luck breaking down highly modified cars and selling parts off of them as long as I get the OEM stuff in the purchase.
I kept all the old Forte stuff for that reason. Return to stock, sell off extras. Sell car at normal value. You still lose money, but not as much.
If you wait months for the right buyer and can show you used quality parts and quality work putting them in, you can take LESS of a bath.
But like weary said, I've always parted out modified cars I wanted to sell.
I've taken a bath on every car I've ever sold.
Yes, but the car needs to be much better for them.
It's like buying and selling a new car. You usually lose some money. But it is possible to make it.
Yes, but all 3 times it was with Jeeps. CJ5, CJ7, and a TJ. All were lightly modded though and not heavily modded. By that I mean the buyer could return them to stock with very little effort.
what mods have you done?
Solution: never sell it.
Appleseed said:Solution: never sell it.
Life is too short to own the same car for too long.
I've never lost money on a modified car.I've never returned a car to stock to sell it. I've had over 130 cars in the last 38 years. Most of them modified in some way. The ONLY cars I've taken a loss on were cars I bought new or nearly so, due to depreciation.
Unlike a manufacturer, I don't have to sell one car to thousands of different kinds of buyers, only to ONE kind of buyer. And the mods I do are usually tasteful and similar to mods that a buyer would already want to do.
If a lookie loo say they want it for less than a stock example, I ask them how that/s different than stealing my parts out of my garage? If they say they'd rather have a stock example, I show them listings for stock examples and send them on their way.
Turned a profit on this just like all my modded cars.
Made money on this one even trading it in to a dealer:
this one, like the other custom aircooled cars I did, definitely made money for me.
another:
z31maniac said:Appleseed said:Solution: never sell it.
Life is too short to own the same car for too long.
Life is too short, buy the new one, keep the old one anyway.
Chris_V said:I've never lost money on a modified car.I've never returned a car to stock to sell it. I've had over 130 cars in the last 38 years. Most of them modified in some way. The ONLY cars I've taken a loss on were cars I bought new or nearly so, due to depreciation.
I assume you're defining profit or loss by the purchase price of the vehicle and not including parts (and definitely not labor) that went into modifying them?
No.
I think it really depends on the car, what's done to it, what deal you got on the car and parts, etc. In some cases you'll do well because you happen to have what someone is looking for, other times the mods add no value or reduce value.
GameboyRMH said:Chris_V said:I've never lost money on a modified car.I've never returned a car to stock to sell it. I've had over 130 cars in the last 38 years. Most of them modified in some way. The ONLY cars I've taken a loss on were cars I bought new or nearly so, due to depreciation.
I assume you're defining profit or loss by the purchase price of the vehicle and not including parts (and definitely not labor) that went into modifying them?
No, all parts definitely count. I'm not giving anything away; that would be the same as stealing the parts from me. Not gonna happen.. And the profit pays for my labor. But since it's all spare time that I wasn't going to get paid for anyway, it's counted in the black.
i did pretty good on a motorcycle once but it involved some trade deals. traded a $500 project truck for the bike, lined the tank to stop rusty fuel, cleaned the carbs, bobbed the frame and cut down the seat to fit, then traded it for a xterra i later sold for $2600.
car-wise i usually break even at best.
Has anyone sold a modded car without taking a bath?
No, never, unless your labor has no value maybe.
What is this selling a car for profit, someone needs to explain this to me. 
I've done a lot of things without taking a bath, but this is not one of them.
I figure any car depreciates at 200 a month, as that’s how much the cheapest lease would be. For a daily driver of course. So, if I buy a car for 4800, drive it a year, and sell it for 3000, it’s like I profited 600!
Toebra said:Has anyone sold a modded car without taking a bath?
No, never, unless your labor has no value maybe.
If it's time that you would otherwise be spending watching another episode of Project Binky on YouTube then no, it has no value. At that rate, you could definitely do well on a car, but even for me, I got paid for my time. How?
Let's take the Bugs for example. At the time in the PNW you could get a running one for a grand or less just about everywhere. Parts cars could be had for under $250. Buy a couple of them and just keep them around using what you need then scrapping the rest. So you buy one for, say, $800. Then there was about a grand in custom parts for it, like bumpers, lights, interior kits, craigslist (actually, Auto Trader back then) wheels and new tires. Then another $400 in paint materials. A couple weekends of bodywork and painting and then a day of bolting parts on and the car would look like this:
or like the ones in my prior post above. They would sell at that point for $3500-4000 so that's a profit for a couple weekends not laying about. I'd usually drive them for a few months or a year before selling them on at that profit, too.
Of course, Bugs that were a grand or less before are now 2-3 grand, but the parts only cost a little more, and the sale price of a finished car like the two tone one above could be up closer to 8 grand, so you can still make money on them. I'd love to drag rust free runners that need paintwork back here to the east coast and fix them/sell them on. Even with shipping, a couple grand could be had on each one if not more.
Here's a local one to me. It can be had for under $3k, and with about $2k in work on custom bits (it already has the Empi 8 spoke wheels) and paint, I could sell it for $8k easy. https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/cto/d/1970-vw-beetle/6584952217.html
I am the king of taking a bath. I always manage to hang on to obscure vehicles too long and when I finally decide to dump them, can't give them away. Yet a week later the same model car will be worth it's weight in gold if I need it.
jstein77 said:No.
+1 The best way to deal with selling a modified car is to never know exactly how much money you've put into it.
Consistently at least break even, usually make out pretty well.
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