Definitely check out who you give it to. Last year we donated a 2002 Volvo S80 T6 that had impeccable maintenance on it--drove without any issues still. They supposedly couldn't sell it and gave us $500 for the deduction. A little hard to believe.

When does ownership change hands?

Anonymous wrote:Vehicles for change. They either sell at auction, fix and donate to a needy family or fix and sell on their lot. I donated two cars and in each case could have sold them easily for about $1000 but got a $5000 donation for one (Infiniti sold at auction) and $7000 deduction for the other (Saab sold on a lot). They money all goes to fix up cars that are given to families in need. It is an awesomely me organization. They will come and tow away from you.

I haven't donated, but I have a friend that did. They got a significantly bigger deduction receipt than they expected from other charitable donations. Because they put the cars back into service, they can give you a FMV deduction which is typically greater than the KBB value or other values that most charities give.

https://www.vehiclesforchange.org/fair-market-value-for-donations/

We want to donate our 2012 with 85k miles. I’m curious about title transfer (only worry is liability after the car leaves our driveway). Anyone know how ownership/liability runs?

Anonymous wrote:check with high school vocational auto courses

That’s where we donated a car whose transmission had gone. They were SO EXCITED to have a busted transmission to work on. It did take some hassling to get the donation letter, though.

https://carshelpingveterans.org

A couple of years ago, we donated a 1999 Mazda Protege with a little under 100k miles in December. There were some mechanical errors but the car was drivable. It also had a spare tire on it. We left the car unlocked, left the title and keys in the glove compartment, and they came to pick it up while we were at work. They mailed my tags back to me.

I claimed $500 on my taxes but JUST before April 15, I got a letter in the mail that they'd sold it for $900. So I was able to amend my taxes and get a little more money back.

It was so easy. I would do it again in a heartbeat for an old car like that.

OP here, thank you so much for all the suggestions!

We donated to the vocational tech program at Arlington Public Schools - you can deduct the blue book value rather than whatever the charity will resell it for.

About to donate a still running but old car, apparently the min tax value is $500 regardless of what they do with it. Hopefully anything still running would be more than that but you will not get nothing.

check with high school vocational auto courses

Should just be awesome, not “awesomely me”, I hate autocorrect

Vehicles for change. They either sell at auction, fix and donate to a needy family or fix and sell on their lot. I donated two cars and in each case could have sold them easily for about $1000 but got a $5000 donation for one (Infiniti sold at auction) and $7000 deduction for the other (Saab sold on a lot). They money all goes to fix up cars that are given to families in need. It is an awesomely me organization. They will come and tow away from you.

most charities will take your car. just call your favorite charity and arrange pick up. take your tag off the car.

We just donated our car to a charity that helps to end Veteran homelessness. We found it super easy. They came, towed away the car, gave us a receipt with information for our taxes and a couple of months later we got an email from the charity thanking us (after car was sold for parts, or something like that).
http://www.vehiclesforcharity.org/Donate/ORHF.html

we have a 2005 Honda Accord with would like to donate. car has about 100K miles, but the power steering is not working, the lock does not lock and there is some minor cosmetic damage on one side, above one of the back wheels. we don't want to fix it (have a new car, need one car and in the past few months there was a series of small issues and we just don't want to keep having to pay here and there to keep it going). we would like to donate it, by the end of the year. any recommendations? a friend years ago donated a non-working car to NPR and she was happy. I am looking for a combination of a worthy cause, easy process and decent value. also, we have never done this before, so if there is anything we need to be careful about, please let me know (I want to make sure we are not responsible for the car/damages/tickets in the future). thanks