Every junk buyer in the country claims to pay the most. They cannot all be right, and the reason the question is so hard to answer is that the largest part of a junk car's price is set by a commodity market, not by the person quoting you.
A junk car's base price is its curb weight multiplied by the current price of shredded auto steel per ton. That price moves weekly.
How much does it move? Published 2026 figures disagree with each other, and the disagreement is the point:
These are secondary sources and we have not independently verified any of them, which is exactly why we are showing you three instead of averaging them into one confident-looking figure. Scrap steel is a commodity with regional pricing and weekly movement. A yard two hundred miles away is working off a different number than the yard near you, on a different day of the week.
Run it yourself: a 3,400 lb sedan is 1.7 tons. At $150 a ton that is about $255 of steel. At $220 a ton it is about $374. Same car, same week, different zip code.
Here is the part most “who pays the most” articles skip.
A catalytic converter is not priced by weight. It is priced by its platinum, palladium and rhodium content, which varies enormously by make, model and year. Published ranges run from roughly $50 to $1,200 and up for a single unit. It is frequently the most valuable single component on an otherwise worthless car.
Which produces the single most useful fact on this page: two visually identical junk cars can be hundreds of dollars apart, and the difference is a part you cannot see from the driveway. A buyer who asks whether the converter is still attached is not being difficult. He is asking the only question that materially changes his number.
If yours was stolen — and for some models that is common — say so when you request the quote, not when the truck arrives. The number will be lower and it will also be the real number.
Converter sales are tightly regulated in many states because of theft, which is another reason a licensed buyer's quote and a scrapper's quote are not comparable things.
Once you subtract the steel market and the converter, the margin a buyer has to work with is narrower than the advertising suggests. What genuinely differs:
Because they are not three bids on one thing. They are three different businesses, at different distances, with different end markets, on different days of a moving commodity market, pricing a car they have each been told about differently.
Quote spread is normal. It is not evidence that someone is cheating you. What is evidence of a problem is a number that changes after you accepted it, for a reason you already disclosed.
Five questions. They take two minutes and they are the whole difference between a quote and a price:
Describe the car pessimistically when you ask. A quote built on the worst honest description of your car is a quote nobody can cut later.
On a genuine scrap car we do not pretend to beat the market, because the market is a steel price and a converter. We route those to an instant-offer partner who makes a firm number and collects, and we are paid a referral commission when that sale completes. We would rather tell you that than have you find it out.
Where we are worth your time is the car that is not actually junk. Cars get called junk because they will not start, because a repair quote was frightening, or because they have been sitting. None of those are the same as worthless, and a car that someone would still drive has competing buyers — which is a different pricing mechanism entirely, and the one we are built for.
Tell us about the car and we will say which of the two it is.
There is no single buyer that always pays the most, because most of a junk car's price is set by the current scrap steel market and by whether the catalytic converter and drivetrain are intact — not by the buyer. The practical answer is to get three written quotes based on an accurate, pessimistic description of the car, and to confirm whether towing is included.
Published 2026 estimates put scrap value alone at roughly $150 to $500 for a typical car, and $250 to $750 or more from a licensed buyer once an intact catalytic converter and reusable parts are counted. These are secondary-source ranges and scrap steel prices move weekly, so treat them as a sanity check on a quote rather than as a target.
Yes, and it is the single largest variable between two otherwise identical cars. Converters are priced on platinum, palladium and rhodium content rather than weight, with published values ranging from around $50 to over $1,200 depending on make, model and year. If yours has been stolen or removed, disclose it when you request the quote.
Because the buyers are at different distances, sell into different end markets, quote on different days of a moving commodity market, and may have been told different things about the car. A spread between quotes is normal. A number that drops after you accepted it, for a reason you already disclosed, is not.
Usually not, unless you already have a buyer and the tools. Stripping a car lowers what a dismantler will pay for the whole, and a car missing its converter, wheels or glass is worth noticeably less than the sum of a difficult parts sale. Selling catalytic converters is also tightly regulated in many states.
It depends on the state and on the car's age. Without one, the pool of buyers who can legally take the car narrows, and a narrower pool pays less. A duplicate title is often cheap — a few dollars in some states — and usually worth the wait. Our state guides cover the forms and fees.