My beloved 1999 Subaru Impreza recently died. A cog on the timing belt broke off causing my pistons and valves to smash into each other. Although it is within my ability to repair, I had to put sentimental value aside and know that the car is not worth pouring thousands of dollars into.
As sad as it is, I decided to part out the car. I won’t get much money for it as a whole, so why not make it useful for all sorts of Subarus around the U.S.? In a way, it will be like its still alive; still on the road as a part of other cars. So I took to forums, Facebook, and Craigslist and sure enough, I got some bites. There was only one problem: shipping.
I sold a fender off my car for $70. I assumed it would be $50 for my pocket and $20 to send it a couple states over. I was wrong. Even though it weighed less than 10 lbs, the size of it would make the shipping alone cost $170! To put that into perspective, you could purchase 3 brand new (primered) fenders online and get them shipped for less than $170. Long story short, the sale didn’t go through and the buyer didn’t get a fender that already matched his car.
So, being the resourceful guy I am, I took to the web to find cheaper options and found Roadie. You can ship out-of-the-box large items for a fairly reasonable price. If you’ve ever used Uber, it’s about the same only they deliver your stuff instead of you. You just need to let them know what part of their vehicle the part will fit in, tell them where it’s going, and someone will show up at your house to pick it up!
Shipping for my fender would have gone down to roughly $100 using this service over UPS or FedEx. Still not practical for my sale, but it’s almost half of what I would have paid and I wouldn’t need to buy a box. So if you’re in the market for selling car parts but shipping is just too costly, go ahead and check out Roadie!