Totalled Mazdaspeed on ebay

when i see something like look at what the market price would be for the thing in perfect condition and what it would cost to get it there... then that gives you a ballpark of the current value. i don't think that their suggestion of the car being worth 19k is realistic. i would say more like

12k or perhaps 15k from a dealer with a full warranty. it needs a new hood, both front fenders, drivers quarter panel, possibly drivers door is messed up, and the full nose including the frame, headlamps, fog lights, and god only knows what damage has been done to the wiring. then there is the engine.. obviously need a radiator and there are some other smaller tube cut clean that imply something else is missing... and the airbag. also the rims may be out of true... all said, lots of work. and resale value on any car that once had a salvage title suffers greatly since carfax now exists. it is interesting, but it is also not so surprising that it hasn't been snapped up given the price. there are just too many unknowns to determine if that price is a bargain or not, but i would suspect it is not.

The salvage title makes that $4,499.99 too high.

I never even considered putting it back in running order. I guess I could have made that clearer ;-) I was thinking more of doing a major upgrade to an NB and selling off a bunch of the other parts. Would be a fun project. One of my favorite 10AE's had the interior completely converted to the black leather with red stitching from the Speed. It was beautiful. IIRC it also had the 04 Speeds wheels.

Chris

99BBB

But it could be very profitable if parted out. Wrecking yards make a fortune on a single wreck, the problem being it often takes them years to sell everything from a wreck.

Put back together properly, with a salvage title, it only has a market value of about 50% of the same car with a normal title.

They might sell them faster if they didn't charge so close to what a new part costs. There is an extremely heavy market for Miata parts, more so than for any car I have ever dealt with before.

I received constant comments on how much money I had saved people when I sold them parts from my two Miata tear downs, and did not feel like I was getting ripped off at all. An example is a set of seats that I sold for $150.00. The salvage yard wanted over $300.00 for a nearly identical set. The $300.00+ seats are probably still there.

Pat

Pat, what did you think of this particular car's potential as far as a part-out car. Did you check it out?

Chris

99BBB