Please forgive me as I don't know a whole lot about cars. My brother (who does know quite a bit about cars and VW's) had this idea and I'm looking for help to determine if it's a good idea or if my brother is just too excited about the prospect of this project to really tell the truth.

Here's the story: He works next to an empty building. The buildings owner left his 2003 Jetta Automatic w/Tiptronic, 120K miles sitting inside of it for almost a year. He and his wife both have cars so this is an extra.

It died about a year ago and he towed it to the VW dealership in town. They told him the turbo is gone and there no compression in the engine, could be a gasket. This guy knows nothing about cars so has left it in storage.

My brother would like to buy the car, replace the engine (found one for $1500, 80K mil) replace the turbo (used $275) and sell it to me for a small profit. (I often babysit his kids so this would be paying me back)

We can find the price of a working car but I was wondering if you could tell me how to figure out the cost of the car as is or how much you would be willing to pay for it (as is meaning, non running)

Thank you so much for your help. I hope I can get this little beauty, I've always wanted a VW.