Mr. Savvy and I have been a single car household by choice for several months now.  We retired his car this summer when gases prices were at an all time high, and his car needed a few repairs.  Although my car is older, it has fewer miles, gets better gas mileage, and is in a better state of repair than his car.  It made more sense to stick with mine.

This week, we decided that we should repair his car so that when he applies for new jobs, we won’t have to worry about it on top of making sure his suit is pressed for interviews and he has directions to the company.  We trundled off to the repair shop bright and early, where they promised they would look at it right away and get back to us.

It only took two hours to find out that our car is junk.

In addition to the broken ball joints we anticipated, the undercarriage of the car is rusted out, and one of the springs on the rear wheel needs to be replaced; all in all, a $2000+ repair job.  We didn’t pay that much for the car.

It looks like it’s time to be rid of it, forcing us to leave the safety net of having a backup in the garage, just in case.   And no one will want to buy a car pushing 120,000 miles that needs $2000 worth of repairs, not in this economy.  We decided it’s in our best interest to donate it.

There are many options open for donating a car that vary from internet schemes that claim to give a percentage to a nonprofit (but don’t), to the most well-established programs out there.  Most programs follow a specific format:

1. You contact the nonprofit with information about your car.  Some nonprofits will take any car, some will only take cars that run.  Almost all nonprofits need the title.
2. Someone responds to your inquiry and sets up an appointment for a tow truck to come to your house and take the car.  Sometimes the nonprofits need more information about your car, and want you to send the title up front.  Sometimes you can just hand it over when your car is towed.  It depends on the nonprofit.
3. You meet the tow truck at the designated time.  If you’ve agreed to relinquish your title at the time of tow, now’s when you do it.  In return, the tow person may give you a set of documents that acknowledge your donation.  Or the nonprofit will mail them to you.
4. Once the nonprofit has your title and car, they sell it.  If your car sells for over $500, you’re entitled to claim the sale price as a deduction on your taxes.  If it sells for under $500, you may claim the fair market value.  The nonprofit will send you the documents stating what your car sold for within 30 days of the date of sale.

There are some variations on this theme.  Some nonprofits will tow your car for free, and some will ask that you pay to have it towed.  Some require you to estimate the value of your car before they sell it.  Some receive less money than others from the sale of your car.  Perhaps you want the money to go to a nonprofit near you.  Small nonprofits will likely go through a middle man in order to sell the car; these sales result in a smaller donation to the nonprofit.  However, if it’s important that your donation goes to a particular charity, perhaps it doesn’t matter that you have to pay for the tow.  That’s why it’s important to do your research before you donate.

The National Kidney Foundation is the longest running car donation program, and was the nonprofit to start it all 25 years ago.  It is due to them that the donation process is so easy; they set many of today’s standards.  Of all car donation programs, they receive the most money from the vehicle sales at 75 percent.

The Salvation Army also has a nationwide car donation program that appears to be streamlined.  They do not disclose the percentage of car donation sales on their website.

Mr. Savvy and I have no affiliations with nonprofits in the area.  Because we want this process to be as painless as possible, we’ve opted to go with the National Kidney Foundation, and trust in their years of experience.  We’ll be contacting them within the next week or so, which means I should have a review of their process up soon.