I have a 1996 Ford Windstar (minivan). It has 190K miles on it. I estimate it gets between 18 and 21 miles to the gallon. Runs rather well in the snow. It runs perfectly fine but has 3 problems.
The first is that the digital interface on the stereo is extremely dim. It can only be seen when direct light is on it or when it's night time. That one's a small thing.
The next problem is a bit bigger: One of the pistons only fires about half the time. What it needs to fix it apparently is a tune up (I've already tried a new spark plug but nothing). Once this gets fixed, the gas mileage will increase.
And the final problem is there's an oil leak. I'm not sure how bad it is but I do need to put oil in it fairly regularly. Would have had it fixed by now but like the tune up, I don't have the money for it.
Other than that it runs fine and just has a few very small cosmetic defects (slightly broken, but still perfectly working mirror and some small rust spots). New battery, new headlights, tranny is about a year and a half old, tires are 6 months old, brakes need new pads but I'm getting those soon.
I'm planning on selling it soon for something better and need a rough estimate of what I should sell it for and in my area, I've seen far worse sell for a couple thousand dollars. So how much would you pay for it as is?
2011-06-23T03:19:33Z
Preferably realistic answers, not those "haha I'm funny so I'll say $3" type answers.
According to Edmunds.com a Ford Windstar in good condition would fetch about $1226. With high mileage and the kind of problems you mentioned this price will fall in accordance with the cost of fixing them. The digital interface seems to require a back light which may or may not be simple to fix. The tune-up and oil leak will be more costly though.
You need to get some quotes on getting the problems fixed if you want to get the maximum selling price. There is a handy guide on How to Buy a Used Car (link at the bottom) that will help you inspect the car for faults that can be fixed (there is a checklist in the download section).
As a side note, if you are not particularly sentimental about the car, it may be possible to sell it for scrap metal and get a similar price. Many scrap metal dealers will pay you for the metal in weight which may in fact be quite valuable.You can check out the current market price for scrap metal in the link provided below. Be aware of the fact that scrap metal dealers will pay less than half of market price and if they need to break the car apart will probably not give you a fair value for the different kinds of metal in the car (aluminum, steel, copper and even radiators are separately priced for instance), but rather just an average of the most predominant metal. So this may be a different avenue to explore should you want to get cash for your car.
Check for yourself on www.nada.com and then again at www.kbb.com. Fix anything that you can yourself. Use the private seller portion of those websites, the dealer price is always more than it is worth and the trade-in is always less than it is worth. Figure what it is worth and price it a tad high on craigslist, they will certainly try to talk you down on the price.
i've got self belief they have 365 days grace wherein to tax their automobiles, yet numerous them are very sensible, in the event that they circulate returned over to Poland in the time of that factor they get yet another extension on having to tax their automobiles, luckily the government at the moment are making it cease and the DVLA are additionally clamping and crushing their automobiles in the event that they have not any tax, I have not were given something opposed to the Polish, what I do have a situation with is the actuality they are in a position to destroy out with doing what they are automobile tax sensible till the government places the plan in position and the DVLA has seemed after their edge of it out, may we destroy out with it, NO.
FYI...this was a realistic answer. Actually I was being generous. Free would be too expensive for a 15 year old vehicle with almost 200K miles on it. Will it even make it to the end of your street???? What a hunk of junk!!!!!