Scrap vs salvage: which gets you more for your van?

If you’ve ever tried to sell an end-of-life van, you’ve come across two words that sound similar but pay very differently: scrap and salvage. Most sellers don’t know the difference. Most buyer sites don’t bother explaining it. And on the average van, the gap between the two is £200 to £1,200.

Worth knowing.

Scrap, in plain English

Scrapping a van means it goes to an Authorised Treatment Facility (ATF) and gets broken down for metal. Steel body. Aluminium engine block. Copper wiring. Catalytic converter precious metals. Whatever the weighbridge says it weighs, multiplied by the metal market that day, minus the cost of pulling it apart.

Most vans, scrapped, come out at £120 to £280 in 2026. The number bounces around with the LME steel price.

Salvage, in plain English

Salvage is when the van, or significant components of the van, get recovered and resold, not melted. The engine, if it runs, gets pulled, tested, and sold to a workshop or fleet operator who needs a replacement. Same for the gearbox. Body panels, doors, dashboards, ECU, EGR coolers, there’s a market for every one of them.

Salvage offers on running vans typically come in £400 to £1,800 in 2026. Why so much higher? Because a working 2.0 TDCI engine sells for £900 used. A scrap engine sells for £80 of metal.

So which does your van fall into?

Vansold’s pricing engine runs both calculations and quotes you the higher one. Roughly:

• Scrap zone: non-runners pre-2010, vans with cracked blocks or seized engines, vans with significant chassis rust, written-off vans where the structure is compromised.
• Salvage zone: running vans 2010-2018, vans with mechanical issues that don’t compromise the components (head gasket gone but block intact, turbo failed but engine sound, gearbox issues but engine fine).
• Both available, take the higher: that’s the most common case. Most 2010-2018 vans get a salvage offer, even if they don’t run, because the components have value.

What this means for the form

When you enter your reg, the price you see is already the higher of the two. You don’t have to choose, you don’t have to know which category your van is in. Just two clean labels:

• “Better than scrap”, your van is worth more for its parts than its metal.
• “Scrap”, pure metal value, full stop.

Either way, free collection, same-day payment.

The dishonest comparison

Some cash-buyer sites use the word “salvage” but only run a scrap calculation in the background. You see the word, you assume you’re getting the higher number, you accept, and then on the doorstep the deduction list comes out and the actual money is scrap-grade. Vansold doesn’t do that, the offer is the offer.

Try it. Free, two minutes.