07-11-2010, 02:40 AM

My Macbook was recently water damaged and will cost $750 to repair. Instead I plan to buy a new one. There is no damage other than the fact that the battery will not hold a charge and therefore only works when plugged in. This wouldn't be an issue except I'm a student who needs my mac to be portable.
I was just wondering if it would be better to try and sell it damaged or scrap out parts? And what the selling price for either would be?
The computer is less than a year old.

07-11-2010, 03:39 AM

Originally Posted by agressivehobo

I was just wondering if it would be better to try and sell it damaged or scrap out parts? And what the selling price for either would be?
The computer is less than a year old.

You will always make more money selling the parts separately. This works for cars, this works for washing machines, this works for lawn mowers, and it works for computers. But selling the parts separately will almost always take a lot longer to accomplish as well.

If you sell the computer intact...then someone may buy it and simply replace the bad parts themselves...to make the computer operational again. Many of us are capable of finding the parts we need, and replacing the parts ourselves, saving a lot of money in repair costs.

So it's up to you. Sell it as an:

- intact computer (properly communicating that it was water damaged), make less money overall, but get a bigger "lump sum" quicker.

- or sell the parts individually...making sure you correctly identify the good parts & the bad water-damaged parts so buyers know exactly what they're getting. Then you may make more money in the long-term...but it's going to most likely take longer to sell all the parts. And the money you make will "trickle" in slower over a longer period of time.

As far as the selling prices...who the heck knows! You haven't even given us the specifications of this computer to even be able to guess. And even if you gave us the specs...there really is no accurate way to estimate the value of a broken computer or individual parts without doing a LOT of homework...and even then it all depends on who's looking for the exact parts you're selling at the time you're selling them.

Suffice it to say. If someone had a $1000 computer...and someone told you that it didn't work, and it was going to cost $750 dollars to fix it...how much would you pay for it? Not much I can guarantee it!

Sorry...just just trying to help...but being honest at the same time.,

- Nick