I bought crumbling £250 motor destined for scrapyard & now it’s worth £1,900 – here’s what you need to look for
A PETROLHEAD has revealed how he bought a crumbling £250 motor and managed to sell it on for a whopping £1,500.
The motors whizz found the little hatchback on Facebook Marketplace and, with a few DIY repairs, managed to make a tidy profit from his garden shed.
Car enthusiast Josh Sanderson revealed on his YouTube channel that he picked up a 2012 Vauxhall Corsa online for just £250.
The reason it was so cheap was some nasty engine damage, which meant that the motor wouldn’t run.
It was also suffering from some rust and was littered with dirt and rubbish inside.
Nonetheless, Josh saw the potential in the car and knew he could sell it on for much more than he paid for it.
He explained: “I’ve never fixed anything like this, now I’ve got to fix it cheap.
“I diagnosed it as a bad head gasket and a warped head.
“I know it sounds ridiculous but I’m so happy.
“It was still misfiring a little bit, but other than that it ran great.”
Josh kept costs down by doing all the work himself in a friend’s workshop but insisted he still would have made a profit had he not done so.
There was just one problem he didn’t forsee, which he warned everyone else to look out for.
He had originally planned to sell the car for £2,500, guaranteeing himself over £1,000 of profit.
However, he went on: “After listing the car on AutoTrader, I actually found that it was an insurance write-off in the past.
“That meant it wasn’t worth the £2,500 I thought it was.
“But I still made a good profit.
“I sold it for £1,900, giving me a profit of £754.55.”
That included the cost of all the restoration work as well as £120 for insurance as he used it as a daily driver before selling it.
And even if he’d had to take the car into a garage to get the repairs done, he still estimated that he would have taken home £454 in profit regardless.