If a car has been sitting in your driveway for months and simply won’t start, you don’t have a problem, you have something we want to buy. Sellers across Johannesburg, Pretoria and the rest of Gauteng call us every week convinced their dead vehicle is worthless. It almost never is. Whether it turns over and won’t fire, has a flat battery and seized brakes from standing, or gave up after an electrical fault, the parts are still worth real money. We pay for that money, and we fetch the vehicle for free anywhere in the province.
Sitting, standing, won’t start: that is exactly what we buy
A car that has stood off the road for a year or two is our bread and butter. Time on the driveway does not empty a vehicle of value. The panels, glass, lights, drivetrain and electronics are all still there, and other owners on the road need every one of them. The engine may be the reason it stopped, but the rest of the car carries on being useful long after the motor gives up.
The reason it won’t start matters far less than people think. A seized engine, a blown head gasket, a dead gearbox, a fried ECU, a wiring fault, or just years of neglect. Most of those faults take out one system and leave everything else intact. If the trouble is specifically under the bonnet, our notes on how to sell a car with mechanical problems explain what that is worth. And if it is a knock rather than a breakdown that put it there, our sibling page on how to sell a non-runner covers the same ground from the accident angle.
Where the value sits in a car that won’t run
A non-running vehicle is worth the sum of its reusable parts, not the price of its metal by the kilogram. That is the single mistake that costs sellers the most. The value is spread right across the car:
- The drivetrain: even a tired engine has a usable block, head and ancillaries, plus the gearbox, diff and driveshafts.
- Straight body panels: doors, bonnets, boot lids, bumpers and fenders.
- Glass: windscreens and side and rear windows, which are expensive to replace.
- Wheels and tyres, alloy rims especially.
- Electronics: ECUs, alternators, starters, sensors, the wiring loom and the lights.
- Interior trim, suspension and brakes.
Front-end parts move the fastest, because most accident cars are hit at the front. Headlights, bumpers, bonnets, radiators and fenders are the quickest to find a new home. A single good headlight for a current model can be worth more than a scrap yard would pay for the whole car, which is the gap most people miss.
Because Lou Appel’s is a used-parts supplier, not a metal recycler, we price what can come off the vehicle and go back onto another one. That is why our number usually beats a scrap yard, and why it pays to get a parts quote before you let anything go for weight. Toyotas sell fastest of all, since there are more of them on South African roads than anything else, so a standing Hilux, Fortuner or Corolla is always in demand, with the VW Polo and Polo Vivo close behind.
We tow any non-runner free, right across Gauteng
You will not pay a cent to move the vehicle, which matters when it cannot drive itself onto a trailer. We collect free across the whole province: Johannesburg, Pretoria and the rest of Tshwane, the East Rand around Ekurhuleni, the West Rand, and down into the Vaal at Sedibeng. Collection in Johannesburg is often same day depending on the time you call, and Pretoria and the outlying areas are usually next day.
A car that has stood still tends to make collection harder, and that is our job, not yours. We once fetched a bakkie from the back of a customer’s yard with no keys, its wheels stolen, and a boundary beam blocking the truck. We brought spare wheels, worked it into position and loaded it. Boom-gated complexes and tight driveways are all in a day’s work, so a flat battery, seized brakes or a car wedged where it died is never a reason we cannot take it.
How the sale works
It is deliberately short. You send photos and a few details over WhatsApp, we quote, and if the number suits you we book a time and arrive with a trailer. We pay you on the spot, cash or instant EFT the same day, and we handle the ownership transfer ourselves. We do the NATIS deregistration in-house, so you never end up like the seller who sold privately, watched the buyer skip the transfer, and kept getting traffic fines and e-toll bills for months afterwards. Once our truck pulls away, the car stops being your responsibility.
Our buying office is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 3pm. Outside those hours, send your photos through and we will reply. Have these documents ready and the handover takes minutes:
- Your SA ID or passport.
- The vehicle registration certificate, the RC1, also called the NATIS document.
- Proof of residence less than three months old.
- Your banking details for the EFT.
- If the vehicle is still financed, a settlement letter from the bank. WesBank and MFC issue these quickly.
We have been buying dead and damaged vehicles from our yard at 233 Booysens Road in Selby since 1939, more than 85 years and three generations of the same family. If your car will not start because of an accident rather than a breakdown, our full guide to selling an accident-damaged car in South Africa walks through how the codes and the paperwork fit together, and our page for sellers across Gauteng looking to sell a damaged car shows everything else we buy.
Don’t send a car that won’t start to scrap before you know what its parts are worth. Send us photos, get a real figure, and we will tow it free anywhere in Gauteng with cash or instant EFT on the day. Call 011 493 8260 or WhatsApp us pictures of the vehicle for a quote, or drive to 233 Booysens Road, Selby.
