Short answer: Most junkyard offers for a complete car fall between about $250 and $500, and a heavy truck or a car with parts in demand can bring more. Pull-A-Part, which runs self-service yards, says junkyards pay around $250 to $500. The starting point is scrap weight. Scrap steel averaged $177.27 a ton on September 29, 2026, which puts a 3,000-pound car near $266 before towing and processing. Parts add to that and missing parts take away from it.
Disclosure: the cash offer form on U-Pull-It.com is run by Wheelzy, which competes with the buyers named here, and we may be paid when a reader sells a car through it. No buyer paid for or reviewed this article. We have not sold a car to any of them ourselves, so everything here comes from public sources.
Last checked: September 29, 2026. The steel price is the national average from iScrap App. Vehicle weights and scrap ranges are from Junk Car Medics, which is itself a buyer. Pull-A-Part and Pick Your Part statements are from pullapart.com and pyp.com. This article replaces a 2026 version.
What is the scrap floor for a car?
Weight in tons times the price of scrap steel. iScrap App showed a national average of $177.27 per ton for shreddable steel on September 29, 2026. A ton is 2,000 pounds.
For a 3,000-pound sedan: 3,000 divided by 2,000 is 1.5 tons, and 1.5 times $177.27 is $265.91. For a 5,000-pound pickup: 2.5 tons times $177.27 is $443.18.
Read those as ceilings for the metal, not as offers. The buyer pays for the tow, drains the fluids and needs a margin, and a car is not all steel. Junk Car Medics says a bare body is worth about $50 to $300. Local steel prices differ from the national average too, and scrap car prices tracks them.
What do junkyards pay by vehicle type?
The weights and the two price columns on the left are published by Junk Car Medics on a page dated February 2026. It is one buyer's estimate. The last column is our arithmetic at the September steel price.
| Vehicle class | Weight used | At $100 per ton | At $200 per ton | At $177.27 per ton |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subcompact | 2,500 lb | $125 | $250 | $222 |
| Compact car | 3,250 lb | $163 | $325 | $288 |
| Mid-size car or crossover | 3,750 lb | $188 | $375 | $332 |
| Small pickup | 4,000 lb | $200 | $400 | $355 |
| Full-size car | 4,500 lb | $225 | $450 | $399 |
| SUV | 4,750 lb | $238 | $475 | $421 |
| Standard pickup | 5,000 lb | $250 | $500 | $443 |
These are scrap values, so they leave out parts. Junk Car Medics gives $100 to $600 as its overall range for scrap vehicles.
Pull-A-Part's figures are close. Its page on junk car value says junkyards pay around $250 to $500, that a complete Honda Civic will probably bring about $250 and a Chevy Suburban up to $500, and that in most cases it pays up to $900. The page carries no date. Look up your own car's curb weight and run the same sum, or let the junk car value calculator do it.
What adds value above scrap?
Three things: a complete car, a catalytic converter, and a model whose parts sell.
Completeness comes first. Pull-A-Part's quote form asks whether the engine, transmission and catalytic converter are present, whether all wheels are on, and whether the doors, hood and trunk are intact. It says it weighs up vehicle weight, completeness and major damage.
The catalytic converter is often the most valuable single part, because of the metals inside it. Check catalytic converter values for yours. Leave it on the car. A yard prices the car as complete or not, and a missing converter moves you to the lower price.
A running engine helps less than people expect at a self-service yard. Pull-A-Part says it buys a car whether it runs or not, and its form does not ask. Running matters more to buyers who resell the car whole. If the engine is gone, see selling a car with a blown engine.
Demand for the model is the part you cannot change. A yard earns more from a common car or truck whose parts many customers need, and Pick Your Part says its price depends on the year, make, model and condition.
How does a yard calculate an offer?
No chain publishes its formula. The inputs they ask for are the year, make and model, where the car is, whether it is complete, and whether it has major damage. The yard starts from weight, adds what it expects to earn from parts, and takes off the cost of towing.
The result is a quote with conditions. Pull-A-Part's local pages say a quote is good only for the day it is given. Get three quotes on the same day and describe the car the same way each time. Who pays the most for junk cars explains which kind of buyer suits which car.
The Hidden Bill channel on how a totaled car earns money as a whole car, as parts and as scrap. Published August 2026.
