My first car is no good, the frame rusted through all the way in one spot. There is nothing they can do. So do I just drive it to a scrap yard and scrap it out for a bit of money? I can't get any money from insurance because I only had liability. Is it possible to sell the parts for more than the value I could get from scrapping it? The car runs perfectly, I just bought brand new tires in January. Payed 250 to put in a new transmission cable in February. Really svcks.

A car is by far one of the worst investments one could make.

Let's put it this way. I dropped $15k on a Neon by putting a high performance suspension in it, a built high performance transmission, punched and bored engine, turbo, all kinds of crazy high end high performance parts in it. When I sold it as parts do you know how much I made back? $3k. So, to answer your question. No, no you can not sell it off as parts and get the value of the car back. It just won't happen. As for your first question. Yes, you can scrap it but don't expect a ton of money for it either. You are only going to get what it's worth in scrap. Which the price of scrap has gone down. Also, when you scrap it you must remove the gas tank, oil, coolant, trans fluid, brake fluid, battery.

You could donate it too. But again, you aren't going to see a dime for it that way either. You'll get a voucher to claim on your taxes that'll be worth up to $500. But again, you don't ACTUALLY get any money for it.

So, you're kind of boned.

Well my car is toast, any suggestions?

Some butter would go nice with it. Maybe even some eggs.

One a more serious note, ya, you probably cpu;d get a nice amount of cash if you sold off it's parts as opposed to scraping it. If it runs like you say, you could sell anything useful on it and then sell the remained to the scrapyard.

As a disclaimer, I know absolutly Zero about cars...I'm just using my experience with selling old computers as a basis (Got more for selling all parts individualy than a local shop would have paid for the full deal)

Well. I stand corrected...

It will take along time to part out a car and sell the parts.

What you could do is buy the same car, but has no rust, then use your old one to replace the mechanical parts that you need to. Then scrap the rest.

I'm gonna go with CCNA on this one. If you can find another car, say one that has a solid frame and is missing say the engine, you could put together a working car. This all relies on you knowing how to do this type of repair and having the place/equipment to work on it. Do you have an ecology auto/pick a part type of place in your area?

Otherwise, ya, you're pretty screwed.

You should have noticed this before you bought the car. Well, you live and you learn. What part of the frame is rusted all the way? It might not look pretty, but if it runs fine you might be able to ghetto-rig it.

Only problem with that would be getting it to pass inspection. depending on where the OP lives.

Exactly, but it's never been inspected. It just is so hard to take because it runs so perfectly. The problem started last week when I noticed it was hard to turn left. So I imagine the frame must be broke somewhere around there. I went to school for welding, if I could i'd rig it up some how. I didn't check it out to much because I payed 650 for a 96 with only 129000 miles on it. It runs perfectly so I thought "wow what a good deal".

Really svcks that i'll have to drain all of the fluids and remove the gas tank, that presents another problem, getting it to the scrap yard.

man. . check and see how bad the damage is. if you can weld and have access to a cutting torch, or plasma cutter, you just might be able to get rusted out sections replaced.
Do you have access to a pick a part type of junkyard? cause if so, you might be able to get part that are designed for your cars frame.

Not all places do thorough inspections for registration purposes. (my car has never been inspected, but i know some states/places do look at that) Only other problem i could see is if you take it in to a shop for work at a later date, they might declare it unworthy for the road.

if someone sells cheap then assume there's something seriously wrong with it...especially if you see "as is" anywhere.
you could try a trade in deal but they're always a scam.

I hate buying cars, I can't afford new so I always end up buying a headache