One thing that I really cant stand as of late is people parting out cars only because they know they'll get more money that way. I can understand parting out a car that's rusted to shit or has collision damage but stripping a perfectly operable DSM just seems wrong to me. Why not sell the car to someone who'll get enjoyment out of it, rather than stripping it down to nothing? It's never going to be original again, and even if you sell the shell it's still going to be a hodge podge of bullshit.

Just my .02, I've seen too many cars get built up and ripped down because the owner would rather line their pockets than keep a community alive.

I hate it also! I tried to buy a super clean 1g black cherry shell from this guy and he said no becayse he will get more by selling the parts..it was so sad..

Try going to the junkyard and seeing not 1 but galants there.:/. One was a vr4 and the other one was a gsx just broke my heart to see them there

I know, we saw a 1g GST at the junkyard once that didnt seem to have anything wrong with it, they spun the engine over and it turned fine, and had compression. Pulled the pan, everything looked fine. No idea what it was doing there. I regret that I wasnt able to get over there and at least save as many parts as i could from it.

Now dont get me wrong, I'm not against parting out if there's a reason. I parted out this car for example:

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But we STILL didnt junk the shell. It's stripped out now and is going to be a drag car. Most of the hard motor parts are going into a buddy's shell, and the exhaust/pillars/gauges/intercooler are on my car now.

Im sorry, but if I put over $25,000 in to a car, I'm not going to lose over $10,000 and sell the car as a whole because there is no way someone is going to pay more than $15,000 for a 20 year old car. Parting the car out I wont lose nearly as much. I dont know about you but Im not throwing away 10k for a community full of cheapskates.

^^^ Agreed.

DSMers are generally cheap as hell. And you can't get bank loans for these cars anymore. You know how hard it is to sell a nice DSM for 10k? Or how impossible it is to get $15k or $20k for one? Like, literally impossible. But how easy it is to get $15k or $20k in a partout and do it within a month...?

I used to hold the same opinion. I felt sad to see partouts. I felt that way until i was actually doing it, then I saw the light. Not only are you (as a seller) making twice as much money, but you're also breathing life into so many other people's cars by offering your parts for their cars. One chassis down, but how many others potentially saved...?

99gst_racer said:

^^^ Agreed.

DSMers are generally cheap as hell. And you can't get bank loans for these cars anymore. You know how hard it is to sell a nice DSM for 10k? Or how impossible it is to get $15k or $20k for one? Like, literally impossible. But how easy it is to get $15k or $20k in a partout and do it within a month...?

I used to hold the same opinion. I felt sad to see partouts. I felt that way until i was actually doing it, then I saw the light. Not only are you (as a seller) making twice as much money, but you're also breathing life into so many other people's cars by offering your parts for their cars. One chassis down, but how many others potentially saved...?

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I can understand that, but Im talking about cars that are stripped bare. Like someone who bought a 16g, fuel pump, and injectors and strip the whole shell. Instead of putting the stock crap back on it and selling it.

Also you can get bank loans, I've gotten loans for both that I've bought and I didnt even need to for the last one

bmxfelon420 said:

I can understand that, but Im talking about cars that are stripped bare. Like someone who bought a 16g, fuel pump, and injectors and strip the whole shell. Instead of putting the stock crap back on it and selling it.

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99.9% of the time, a part-out will generate more money than selling the car complete. Even only lightly modded cars and especially when stripping one bare and right down to the sheet metal. DSMers just aren't willing to buy cars even for the price of the used value of the included parts. That's just the way it is.

I like to compare it to old Mopars. I got a 1973 duster for $500 in '95. Granted it was a 6er with an auto, but guys put a $3000 small block in them give them a paint job and their worth $10k now, and rusty.

My brother bought a '72 Challenger less engine and trans for about the same in the late 90's. It's got a 440 and set up for drag racing. A guy could resto mod that and get some cash for it.

Maybe I'm in a pipe dream, but if good DSMs keep getting trashed for cheap, the rest will be worth something in another 10 years. These things are cheap to build fast. Granted most people think DSMs are one step above miatas and Mini's for chick cars. Classic mopars actually look tough.

I used to think the same way, (why do these people part out such nicely built cars, especially! the rust free cars) And then i also "saw the light" for what it is, people are cheap and for some people loans are hard to get because of the age of the car.

Now i'm like "F*** it"! let those people keep parting out their cars. It will only make the car you own more valuable and desirable 20-30-40 years from now as the 1g and 2g population continues to decrease.

Don't blame the sellers blame the cheap ass buyers. Thinking they can buy cars with 10-15K invested in them for 2K-3K. It is what it is.

It's for that reason that i'd put a car back to stock basically if I sold it. Maybe leave an upgrade someone would like, but that's about it.

I see both sides here, I love part outs on one hand because then I get to buy some much need parts but at the same time its sad to see the cars we love so much go extinct due to part outs. But really when it comes down to it one day there wont be very many dsms any more. 20 years from now kids will be buying 2013 cars like we buy dsms now and dsms will just be classics. Those of us who still have our dsms will be like the old guys with their 70's mussel cars. Really its all just a vicious cycle.

I have never had a problem parting out cars that I bought for a few parts or just to part them out. Some had good body most had some rust. The last one I parted out was a 97 awd spyder roller with 68k on it. I bought it for 500.00 and wanted the brand new black top off it and some other black parts for my awd spyder with 48k on it. It was stripped to a bare shell and re sold for 300.00. I made 4k on that one.
All in all over the years I have parted out well over 60 dsms.

I even parted out my own 92 talon that I did a ground up restore on just like the hot rods I build. Drove it as a dd for 9 years pulled the engine for a evo 1 and parted the rest to a shell and sold the body for 4k

Yeah I get it both ways. Sad but almost necessary. I'm so bad about it I've hung on to my 96 gsx awd swap parts car and it was thrashed. Slowly I've taken parts off it and stashed them in my garage. Little parts of this and that and my girl friend is always when are you going to haul off that thing? Then I'm going on with oh this is still on there and....that and maybe it would be a cool rwd future project.... Yep I'm a dsm parts hoarder. I admit it. Hey paul the Ebrake backing plates I bought from you were just to support my habit!

I really don't like seeing perfectly good shells go to a crusher all for the sake of a dollar.
I can see people want to make the most money from their cars = no brainer.
At least leave the clean shells rebuild-able so someone can revive it.
I have owned quite the variety of cars over the years. Been active in many different auto enthusiast communities.
But when it comes to DSM's the part outs of perfectly good cars seem more rampant.
I just saved a 98 talon from this fate. $200 they just wanted to get rid of it.
Completely clean AWD 5speed shell, couldn't let it get crushed.
A car this clean is getting rare around my area.

I wish people in this situation where they are going to do a part out would try to keep the car save-able if it's worth it.
Sell of the big dollar items, leave the rest of the car complete.
There are people out there that will revive them.
I am one of them, have car trailer will travel.
We all know we never get back what we put into them, that's the price to play.

At this point in my career I would have jumped on a well built, clean 2g awd. Easily would spend 15k if it was worth it. But, most of us got into this when we were(or still are) young and not making much money.
When i bought my dsm for a grand I had sole custody of my then 8yr old daughter, no child support( deadbeat mom haha, how rare is that?), just bought a fixer upper house and was making 33k a year!! Oh how things have changed and now time is the enemy, not money. If i wasnt balls deep financially in my current dsm(s) I would go anywhere in the country and pay good money for a properly built and maintained dsm.

But thats the way things are, and yes dsmers are super cheap even if they DO make 6 figures. Personally its more of a hassle to part out a car, no matter if i "lose" 10k on it. Im going to do my best to sell a nice 95 shell hopefully before the years out for 600 bucks. I will sell the longblock and ecu but i will try to keep it whole otherwise. Even going to swap the fwd subframe back in it. I know i could make nearly 10x's that if i took countless hours disassembling everything. Then packing, shipping, getting flaky buyers...... ughhh. Thank you to the people who DO part their cars , you guys are patient people and im so glad there are so many of you out there.

Its better to part a car then to send it to the scrap yard.

I agree that parting out a perfectly fine dsm is wrong but its giving many people a chance to get parts that normally aren't available. For example, im in progress on a 95 gsx build it came stock with lsd. Mine is shot and as many of you might know its impossible to rebuild one. Well im finding it hard to find one from a parted out eclipse that had issues. The other day I tried to get a hold of a guy parting out a 95 tsi, he said he wasn't selling it now because he is using it in his daily now but for some reason was wanting to part the running gsx. He said he was going tl get back to me but if he did even selling me the differential he is helping me out with most likely the biggest hassle I'd run into the entire build.

All I ask is go ahead and part it out then allow dsmer's to get ahold of at least the shell for rebuilding if it's in decent shape without price gouging. I mean I have run into a couple guys not on tuners selling a shell and they want way to much but if you don't buy it then they will have it crushed for scrap price. WTH? $1200 for a gutted shell but if I don't buy it you'll crush it for less than $200? How about $300?

I've parted out over 30 dsm in the last 5 years. Most were beyond repairable bought from an auction, others were built projects nobody wanted to pay a fair price for so I parted them out and crush the shell away later. I just crushed 12 dsm's a few weeks ago. ☺ made what I was asking for the car and then some.

2slow4now said:

All I ask is go ahead and part it out then allow dsmer's to get ahold of at least the shell for rebuilding if it's in decent shape without price gouging. I mean I have run into a couple guys not on tuners selling a shell and they want way to much but if you don't buy it then they will have it crushed for scrap price. WTH? $1200 for a gutted shell but if I don't buy it you'll crush it for less than $200? How about $300?

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Consider this: Most rolling chassis still have alot of "partout value". That $1200 gutted shell might still have it's LSD rearend with axles, Wilwood front brakes, nice coilovers, a 3" stainless exhaust, new wheel bearings all around, carbon fiber hood, etc... So when nobody is willing to pony up $1200 for the rolling chassis, the seller strips the car down to sheet metal and sells all those parts for $3k. And can you blame him? Who wouldn't rather have more money for what they are selling? Especially if it means not having to deal with people who want to tell him that his price of $1200 is a ripoff. So now the seller has his $3k in his pocket and the car is nothing more than sheet metal and glass. It won't roll anymore and now is has almost zero value left in it to anybody, so nobody wants it now. And off to the scrapper it goes.

It happens with all older modifed cars you just get more $$ on the part out sad but true

It depends why you are into these cars.

I see new owners on here seeing how cheaply they can get their car running. They may add a few parts, drive it until it breaks and then, realizing they can't recover the dollars they have into it, part it out when they figure out you have to maintain what you buy.

The other group are the owners who recognize these cars for the high level of affordable customization and power they have, and see how rare this combination is. They are the smart ones who recognize how many people see a dsm today and say, "Damn. I shoulda kept mine."

I have no sympathy for the shell-crushers. With few exceptions, most shells can be saved with a little time and skill. To me, shell-crushers are saying, "I don't want to make time to save the marque. Just gimme cheap parts."

I see both sides, but the funny thing at least to me, is about 95% of the people here defending parting out their cars, are the same ones you see bitching and leaving DSMs because parts and good clean shells are getting hard to find.


I've parted a couple cars out but I was always sure to keep the shell mostly intact so it could be put together easily enough again. I've crushed one DSM in my life, because it was wrecked, rusty, and just needed too much to save.

Yeah I see what you guys are saying. Its not like the cars are super super rare, but at the same time its a shame to junk something like a 1g gsx with a little rust, when there's some RS or GS somewhere that could be ripped up to fix it.

If you part out an actual rare car, I'd have to shoot you. Like a Porsche 959 that has any shred of hope of running.