A wreck sitting in your yard is not worth nothing. If your car has been in a smash, will not turn over, or would cost more to fix than it will ever fetch, Lou Appels Auto Spares will buy it for cash. We have been doing exactly this from our yard at 233 Booysens Road, Selby, Johannesburg since 1939, three generations of the same family, and we buy right across Gauteng. We pay on the spot, collect for free, and sort out the paperwork ourselves.
The important word on this page is “we buy”. We are a working spares yard, not an online booking service that hands your details to a stranger. A scrapper weighs your Polo and pays for the steel. We look at the gearbox that still turns, the clean doors, the headlights, the radiator and the alloys, and we price all of it. That is why our offers come in higher, and it is why the condition of your car matters far less to us than it does to almost any other buyer.
What We Buy
If it is a vehicle and it is damaged, run down, or simply not worth repairing, we want to hear about it. There is no make, model or condition we turn away on sight:
- Accident-damaged cars and bakkies, from a bent fender to a front-end folded right back. A Ranger that has been rear-ended or a Hilux that rolled, we will make an offer. Front-end damage is the most common kind we see, and it is also where the fastest-selling parts sit, so it rarely counts against you.
- Non-runners, whatever stopped it: a seized engine, a dead gearbox, an electrical gremlin, or a car that has stood for years.
- Mechanical and electrical failures. When the repair quote climbs past what the car is worth, selling it as it stands makes better sense than pouring money into it.
- Flood, fire and hail damage, from a water-logged interior to a roof dimpled by a Highveld hailstorm.
- Insurance write-offs, Code 2, Code 3 and Code 4. More on those below.
- High-mileage, unroadworthy and financed vehicles, a bakkie with 380,000 on the clock, or something you are still paying off.
Cars, bakkies, SUVs, 4x4s and light commercials, all makes from a humble NP200 to a loaded double-cab, and everything from classic collectors to the latest hybrids. For the seller’s side of the same deal, our guide to selling an accident-damaged car in South Africa walks through it, and our cars we buy page lays out the full list.
Why We Can Pay More
A scrap merchant has one buyer: a foundry that wants metal by the tonne. We have the mechanics and motorists across Gauteng who need a second-hand starter motor, a clean tailgate or a working headlight for the exact model you are selling. That is the whole difference. We are buying your car for the parts other people still want, so we can put a real value on the pieces a scrap yard would ignore.
What sells fastest tells you where the value sits. Toyota parts move quickest, because there are more Toyotas on our roads than anything else, and the Hilux, Fortuner and Corolla lead the way. Volkswagen is next, with the Polo and Polo Vivo close behind. Front-end parts turn over fastest of all, headlights, bumpers, bonnets, radiators and fenders, because most accident cars are hit at the front. The engine is the most valuable single part on any car, though it sells slower than the small accident panels. Even harder-to-shift makes have their place: we buy them cheaper, but their parts cost more, so the sums still work.
The Fortuner That Proves It
Here is a real one from our books. A 2007 Toyota Fortuner 3.0 D-4D came in accident-damaged, with an insured value near R145,000. The owner’s insurer offered him roughly R72,000 for the salvage. We paid R75,000, above the salvage figure, because we could see what the parts were worth. The engine sold for R55,000, the gearbox for R12,000, the doors for about R4,000 each, the seats for R5,000 and the differential for R6,500. On a handful of parts alone we recovered more than we had paid for the whole car. That is why a parts buyer can beat a salvage offer that looks final on paper.
It also explains one piece of advice we give every seller: do not strip the car first. Once the money parts are pulled, the rest sells slowly and our offer drops with it. Sellers who take the engine or the good doors out before calling us almost always end up worse off than if they had sold it whole.
Who We Buy From
We buy from the public, from insurance companies, from salvage auctions, and from panel beaters and workshops clearing space. If you have a written-off car with a salvage figure from your insurer, bring us that number. We can often beat it, because those reusable parts are worth more to our customers than the shell is as scrap. And the figure we quote is the figure you get: no towing fee subtracted at collection, no sudden drop when the truck arrives.
How the Buying Works
We have kept it simple. Nobody wants a week of phone tag while a wreck takes up space:
- Send the car’s details and a few photos on WhatsApp, or phone the yard. Year, make, model and what is wrong with it is enough to start.
- We give you a preliminary cash offer, usually within a few hours.
- We inspect the car, here at Selby or wherever it is parked, and confirm the figure.
- You get paid the same day, cash or instant EFT, and we collect the car at no charge.
Our buying office runs Monday to Friday, 9am to 3pm. Outside those hours, send your photos on WhatsApp or by email and we will come back to you. From first message to money in your account can happen inside a single day.
Free Collection Across Gauteng
We buy right across the province and tow it ourselves for free: Johannesburg, Pretoria and the rest of Tshwane, the East Rand through Ekurhuleni, the West Rand, and the Vaal in Sedibeng. Collection inside Johannesburg is usually same-day depending on the time you call, and Pretoria and the outlying areas are generally next day. Whether you are in Johannesburg or out in Pretoria, the deal is the same, and towing never comes out of your payout. There is more on our Gauteng buying page. We do not buy outside Gauteng, and we will not pretend otherwise. Keeping it local is how we move fast, collect for free and still pay a fair price.
Our tow crew is used to the difficult jobs, too. We once collected a bakkie from a customer’s back yard with no keys, the wheels stolen off it, and a boundary beam blocking the truck. We brought spare wheels, worked it into position and loaded it. Boom-gated complexes and tight spots are all in a day’s work.
We Handle the Paperwork
The admin side puts a lot of people off, so we take it off your plate. We do the NATIS deregistration in-house so the vehicle comes properly out of your name, and if the car is still financed we deal with your bank to get the settlement sorted. WesBank and MFC are quick with settlement letters, so finance rarely holds anything up.
Getting the car out of your name matters more than people think. One seller sold a BMW M3 privately instead of to us. The buyer never transferred it, so for months the traffic fines and e-toll bills kept landing on the seller. Because we handle the deregistration ourselves, that cannot happen to you.
What Documents You Will Need
Have these ready when we come out:
- Your South African ID or passport
- The vehicle registration certificate, the RC1, which is your NATIS document
- Proof of residence not older than three months
- Your banking details so we can pay you
- A settlement letter from your bank if the car is still on finance
Code 2, Code 3 or Code 4: We Buy All Three
If your car has been through an insurance claim, it will carry a write-off code. A Code 2 is an ordinary used car. A Code 3 can be rebuilt and re-registered once it passes roadworthy. A Code 4 is permanently demolished, good for parts and scrap only, and never road-legal again. We buy all three. The code affects what the car is worth, not whether we are interested.
Why Sellers Trust Us
More than 85 years in this trade is the short answer. The method has changed over three generations, from newspaper ads and a landline to WhatsApp and online valuations, but the philosophy has not: fair prices, honest advice and professional service. We are a real, physical yard you can drive to, not a faceless website. The figure we give you holds, collection is genuinely free, and the car leaves properly in our name.
Get a cash offer today. Call 011 493 8260, WhatsApp us a few photos of your car, or drive it to 233 Booysens Road, Selby, and we will come back with a number. Lou Appels Auto Spares, buying damaged vehicles across Gauteng since 1939.
