Abandon the broken 90Q?

[Joel A. Frahm]

The next installment of my tiresome saga:
I talked to the mechanic.  What he wants me to do is this:

Send him the title and $125, and he will dispose of the car.

I owe him $75 for the tow.  He's not charging me for storage.  His claim
is that he will have to go to some effort to get rid of the car and won't
get anything for it, so $50 more for dealing with the hulk.

I suspect the car is worth something to someone, and he stands to do OK
with this.  I have signed no agreement or anything, and am tempted just to
abandon the car to save the $125.  I would do this _if_ I thought he was
taking me to the cleaners and could sell the car as-is for decent money or
if he planned to take my money to haul the car off as junk, but then fix
it and sell it for a tidy profit.  I don't begrudge him a living but I
would take exception to getting taken for a ride.  The heated
leather driver's seat alone is probably worth $100.

If I decide he's ripping me off and to abandon the car, do you think I
would get into more trouble and bigger bills?  We have nothing in writing
and he doesn't know my name, address or even my phone number.

Another option:  If he is charging me to get rid of a hulk, I could drive
out there and strip the thing.  Lights, signals, seats, wheels, tires... I
could even try to take some driveline parts.  Since he has to dolly it
anyway and is charging me to haul off a hulk, I could leave him a hulk.

Maybe if I call him and talk about doing this he'll tell me to just send
him the title and be done with it, since it would take the sweetness out
of his deal to have all the easy parts disappear.

Ain't life grand?
-Joel.
--
Joel Frahm <frahm at jila.colorado.edu>
University of Colorado, JILA