Scrapping a car

On our recent return from England the turbocharger on our Renault Megane Scenic failed causing catastrophic engine damage. I looked into obtaining a second hand engine from either France or England but the total costs of supply and fitting greatly exceeded the cars value. I have now purchased a replacement car but need to dispose of the old one. How is this done in France? Do the breakers buy the old car or do I have to pay them to take it away? It's a shame really as it was a good car.

Hi I can't answer your question, but why not advertise it for sale as spare parts? lots of other sites to advertise on for free, good luck  

I'm interested in what the process is for scrapping a vehicle as there is a small peugeot (french reg) and a white tranny van (english) near me and I'm going to try and find out through our Mairie what one does about these things.........the white tranny van arrived with an anglais with building materials in it and he proceeded to build a house. The house is now up for sale and the tranny van has been deposited in a field.........he also has a caravan which seems to be looking the worse for wear and shows no signs of moving now that its wheels have been removed...... watch this space!!!

We have just scrapped a car. I went to the local garage and asked him if he wanted it for spares, he didn't but said he would collect it for me and he passes them on to the local pommiers for practice routines.

The main point is that you need a paper from the garage or the scrap yard confirming that the car is scrapped and permanently taken off the road. The Carte Grise is also struck through with a pen and you sign and date it the day you get rid of it. The garage took that but gave me a photocopy of it. You need to take both pieces of paper to your insurance company in order to be able to cancel the insurance.

Just to confirm what Amber stated, yesterday afternoon we went to our insurers, Allianz, to be advised that the insurance could not be cancelled unless sold (?) to a garage or passed to a breakers yard. The receipt for the sale (?) or stamped Carte Grise is then taken to the insurers to confirm transfer so the insurance can be cancelled. This is, so far, one of the most absurd things I have encountered in France. I spoke to a French neighbour and he agrees. He says not all insurers have this rule but I'm not so sure. I will remove usable parts for myself then contact a breaker for collection.

I couldn't believe either when I found out what we had to do. I had written to our Insurance agent asking him to cancel the insurance on the car (a Citroen Xantia)as it no longer had a CT and we would not be using it on the road again (we had thought of keeping it to run around on our own land as it's got a tow bar and would be useful for the trailer). He rang me to explain that I had to go through this 'performance' in order to be able to cancel the insurance payments. By the way we are insured with Gan.

What a farce! 

we swap our insurance over from one car to another ie use our 4x4 in the winter months then use our convertible in the summer, we have done this for 7 years and no problems. The only difference this time is we have moved to a nearer franchise and they required use to sign a statement stating we would not be using the 4x4..

What I don't understand is that at a breaker's yard, there are lots of cars with their number plates still on there...