Darren Woods (2:50)

All right, Shawn, so today's story starts out in Austin, Texas, where you met up with a longtime public radio fan for the first stop on our journey.

Noel Preece (2:58)

My name's Noel Preece.

Shaun Saldana (3:00)

And you are a public radio donor.

Noel Preece (3:02)

Yeah, we've been donors off and on for most of the time that we've been in Austin.

Shaun Saldana (3:08)

Yeah, Noel's family has lived here since 2008, and together he and I inspected a 2013 Ford Explorer that his mother in law used to drive. It's silver, has a lot of dings and dents, and when I asked him how he'd describe it, this is what he told me.

Noel Preece (3:23)

I think the brakes probably need to get replaced and the roof leaks.

Darren Woods (3:27)

Okay, so is this actually useful for the public radio station or is it just offloaded junk?

Shaun Saldana (3:32)

It's both useful and offloaded junk. And that is exactly why Noel gave it away.

Noel Preece (3:37)

It needs work. And so I thought, well, if I donate it, then that work can go to somebody else and all of the profits can go to, you know, services that I have relied on for a really long time.

Darren Woods (3:50)

Okay, well, I've never met Noel, but he sounds like an ideal public radio fan to me.

Shaun Saldana (3:55)

Anybody who gives me money is a good person. And Noel's especially a good person because he allowed us to track his Ford Explorer through a long and complicated process.

Darren Woods (4:05)

Yeah, that's because behind every car donation, there is a system of non profit and for profit companies that come together to extract as much value as possible.

Howard Pearl (4:15)

If there is value to be extracted, you'll find it in an automobile.

Shaun Saldana (4:18)

That is the voice of Howard Pearl, the CEO of Charitable Adult Rides and Services, a nonprofit whose acronym spells out the word CARS. CARS helps administer vehicle donations for around 10,000 nonprofits across the country.

Howard Pearl (4:33)

We can process as many as 150,000 vehicles in a year. And those vehicles can be anything from heavy construction equipment to collectible vehicles.

Darren Woods (4:44)

So the nonprofit that gets the vehicle donated, they end up with around 70% or more of the proceeds, and the rest goes to administrative costs and the nonprofit cars.

Shaun Saldana (4:55)

Some of those donations are sold for parts and scrap metal, but the majority are auctioned off and sent back out into the world. Noel's donation is one of these, which is why right before we sent it off, he and I plastered the back bumper and NPR stickers and then dropped a care package into the passenger seat.

Noel Preece (5:12)

To the new vehicle owner.

Shaun Saldana (5:15)

That's the note I prepared for the potential new owner.

Noel Preece (5:18)

KUT socks with song notes. And what I.

Shaun Saldana (5:23)

We did this to let the future owner know that we are following this Ford Explorer. And just a few minutes after this, the first group of people who profited off of Noel's Vehicle arrived. Right now, the Ford Explorer is being loaded up onto the bed of a tow truck while a woman named Sonya grabs the keys. That is it.

NPR Sponsor (5:40)

That's all that entitles to you donating the vehicle.

Shaun Saldana (5:43)

They will call you. Sonja works at Leo's Towing, a local company with two trucks. And for this particular job, they earned $175.

Darren Woods (5:51)

So as Noel's Ford Explorer gets repurposed, we know that many people are going to benefit financially from this clipping the ticket, but generally not the donors themselves. You know, it can be claimed as a tax deduction, but most people don't. As you know, in the tax returns, they just claim the standard deduction.

Shaun Saldana (6:09)

Our donor Noel, will, however, get some public radio merchandise in the mail.

Darren Woods (6:14)

Very nice. And now Noel's car is off to the next step in its journey.

Shaun Saldana (6:18)

Exactly to the auction lot.

Andrew Kinsfather (6:20)

That's a Nissan Altima. That's a little Mini Cooper Town Cars, Toyota Priuses. I mean, it is an array of everything.

Shaun Saldana (6:29)

That's Andrew Kinsfather, the general manager of Public Auto Auctions in Kyle, Texas. It's about half an hour south of Austin. On any given day, there are up to 200 vehicles on the lot. And as I found out, they don't just take in cars and SUVs.

Andrew Kinsfather (6:44)

Now, this is a food truck that we have out here.

Shaun Saldana (6:50)

This is not even a car.

Andrew Kinsfather (6:52)

No, it's not a car. It is a full fledged kitchen on wheels. I mean, it has fryers, a flat grill, regular grill.

Shaun Saldana (7:00)

After Andrew and I got settled in his office, he showed me this pricing tool they use.

Andrew Kinsfather (7:05)

The exterior color was silver.

Shaun Saldana (7:08)

This allows him to compare similar makes and models that have sold in the past year. And because our public radio car has dings and dents and that leaky roof, it gets a 2 out of 5 rating.

Andrew Kinsfather (7:19)

And that gives us an adjusted MMR value of $6,800.

Darren Woods (7:24)

Public auto auctions takes fees based on the sale price of each vehicle. And they need to try and empty the lot as quickly as possible. I heard that these days a lot of car auctions take place online.

Shaun Saldana (7:36)

You heard correctly. Which is why right now, a robot voice is doing the calls.

Auction Voice (7:41)

Next item. 2013 Ford Explorer, new bid, $4,000. I need $4,200.

Darren Woods (7:46)

Wait, I recognize that voice. Is that the person who's always on the end of my phone calls to corporate?

Shaun Saldana (7:51)

Yes, it's the most personal voice that they could find.

Darren Woods (7:54)

Okay.

Shaun Saldana (7:55)

Noel's car was one of the most sought after items because it only had 72,000 miles, which means that within just seconds of it opening, its price shot up.

Auction Voice (8:04)

Going once for $5,000. Going twice for $5,000. Come on. This is a nice one, guys. New bid. 60.

Darren Woods (8:10)

This is a nice one, guys. It will keep you cool when the roof leaks.

Auction Voice (8:15)

Sold for $7,025.

Darren Woods (8:16)

All right, so doing the math, from that final sale price, public auto auctions received $632. The nonprofit cars received a little over a thousand. And kut, the member station that you work for, Sean, that got just over $5,700.

Shaun Saldana (8:34)

And we were thrilled to receive every single penny. Darian.

Darren Woods (8:37)

Yep.

Shaun Saldana (8:37)

And after all those checks cleared, our public radio car has exited the sphere of nonprofits and altruism and re entered the free market. Bumper has been repaired. All of our public radio stickers have been removed. About a month after it sold, I tracked our SUV down at the last stop in our journey, a used car dealership in North Austin. Its owner, Sam Safa, put around $1,200 into fixing it up, which is why right now it has new tires, new brakes, and a sunroof that does not leak. Started up clean.

Andrew Kinsfather (9:16)

It started out very clean. Low mileage, 72,000 miles on it.

Darren Woods (9:20)

I'm not in the market for a car, but it sounds like an okay deal. How much is it going for?

Shaun Saldana (9:25)

Well, Darian, if you were in the market for a new car, this one costs $12,499. And at this point, our public radio car has completed a transformation.

Darren Woods (9:35)

It's had a bit of a makeover.

Shaun Saldana (9:36)

Yeah, it's gone from a run down donation to a bright and shiny piece of inventory for a small business.

Darren Woods (9:44)

That's right. So it seems to be good for both the station and for the car. Well, Sean, thanks for all the car talk.

Shaun Saldana (9:54)

Who knew you could squeeze so much money out of altruism?

Darren Woods (9:58)

If you like this episode and want to help, you can donate your car to your local member station or something. A bit easier is just to tell a friend about this podcast. This episode was produced by Angel Carreras with engineering by Maggie Luthar and Jimmy Keeley. It was fact checked by Sarah Juarez. Cake and Cannon edits the show and the indicator is a production of npr.

NPR Sponsor (10:20)

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