COMMUNITY CAR!

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Background: I bought a shit car in a hurry a few months ago. It's a Volvo station wagon with a mountain of problems. Buying it in a hurry I had kind of over looked A LOT of the troubles and paid, get this, $2100.

I've since bought another car (Subaru, WHICH I LOVE) and have been trying to sell the Volvo, but I can't even seem to get $700 out of it. I've been more honest in my ad which has made the car mostly worthless, had I glossed over the problems like the last owners I may be able to get more. Oh, another thing - I haven't even switched the title over yet, though I did insure it for a month.

So, I had the idea: I NEED TO GET $2100 WORTH OF ENTERTAINMENT OUT OF THIS CAR. The best idea that I've come up with so far is to glue a key into the ignition and the door lock and paint "community car" on the door with a list of instructions that anybody can have it. I'd also like to make it look like a shark, attaching a fin and painting on teeth and gills. I'd also remove all VINs & attach color copied altered license plates. I'm also toying of putting a flower garden in the station wagon back.

PROS: Oh, the laughs
CONS: Drunken teenagers plowing into crowds of people on a street corner

Can I get in major trouble for this or would it just be major littering? Anybody else have an idea?

― hyde park records (colonel), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:37 (nineteen years ago)

can you just sell the parts to a chop shop?

― cognitive discodance (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:39 (nineteen years ago)

http://www2.sbbs.se/hp/eerie/rcar.html

― Courtney Gidts (ex machina), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

if you're in the US, you can donate the car and get a nice tax write-off for it.

― cognitive discodance (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

If you do, it is imperative that you also mount a slew of cameras in the thing.

xpost where's the fun in that?

― mummy wrapped in bacon (nickalicious), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

You could find yourself in trouble for abandoning it, although it's still a good idea.

Have you tried to sell it on eBay? People will buy anything if it's on the internets.

Or you can donate it.

― DAVE, for #1 Hits of yesterday and today! (dave225.3), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:42 (nineteen years ago)

xpost where's the fun in that?

$2100 tax write-off = money that can be spent on fun

― cognitive discodance (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:44 (nineteen years ago)

Touche!

Also, Volvo wagon = made of steel = will pwn a demolition derby.

― mummy wrapped in bacon (nickalicious), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:46 (nineteen years ago)

I've always wanted to launch a station wagon out of a trebuchet.

― mummy wrapped in bacon (nickalicious), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:47 (nineteen years ago)

I think I'd feel bad selling it to somebody who could afford it because it's just going to have more and more problems. The transmission is weird about shifting from 4th to 3rd, etc. It has a slew of electrical problems. The back door lock is broken. Ultimately it's just going to be a headache for somebody & it seems to me that a costly car isn't helpful to a poor family. Maybe I'm wrong.

I'd rather not put anybody or the environment in danger (driving it into the lake, leaving it on train tracks) but I've got to do something, like helium balloons.

― hyde park records (colonel), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:48 (nineteen years ago)

give it to a homeless person

― Courtney Gidts (ex machina), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:53 (nineteen years ago)

take it to lawndale, trade it for goods.

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:56 (nineteen years ago)

Otto OTM.

― Holy makkara, Toivo! (OutDatWay), Monday, 5 June 2006 17:08 (nineteen years ago)

if it wasn't a wagon i'd say paint it like a cpd car and leave it on the side of shoulder of 290 at like 4 a.m. and snarl the morning commute when everyone slows down for what they assume to be a cruiser.

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 5 June 2006 18:35 (nineteen years ago)

i don't have the whole thing fleshed out yet but i have a vague idea for some sort of disturbing papier-mache ronald mcdonald then cruising area mickey d's.

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 5 June 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

or perhaps just driving around with mannequin legs attached to the undercarriage so that it gives the impression someone is being dragged beneath your imported piece of swedish engineering.

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 5 June 2006 20:26 (nineteen years ago)

I guess I could just take it into the country and crash it into something? I like the McD idea & mannequin legs.

I could also cut it into a convertible a la "Thrashin'".

― hyde park records (colonel), Monday, 5 June 2006 20:46 (nineteen years ago)

Demo derby! Demo derby!

Friends of mine had a similarly worthless car so they just put it in the street and invited us all to take sledghammers to it. Which we did. Then we set it on fire. Good times.

― Safety First (pullapartgirl), Monday, 5 June 2006 21:00 (nineteen years ago)

I hate to say this, but ... well, you might be in luck with the title not being in your name yet, but otherwise, there's no way to get rid of this car without getting screwed. Not unless you want to drive it far outside the city. If you abandon it on the street, you'll get parking violations and then eventually cited for towing, removal, and destruction. If you abandon it in a parking lot, or something, you'll get twice that. I don't even want to think about the legal liabilities that'd go with the "community car" deal -- worry less about teenagers than the cute 9-year-old who climbs in and plays with the brake. (So maybe you'd buy some bureaucratic time with the title still being in the previous owner's name, but you've paid for insurance for this car, so there are obvious records that it's your responsibility.)

So anyway if you're going to have fun with it, you should probably make sure that either (a) afterward, it's still in good enough shape to donate and write off, or get to a junkyard on its own steam, or (b) study the tools of the chop-shop and figure out how to obliterate all on-car traces of the vehicle ID.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 5 June 2006 21:21 (nineteen years ago)

How about:

3:00pm - release community car
3:30pm - call it in stolen

― hyde park records (colonel), Monday, 5 June 2006 21:27 (nineteen years ago)

The transmission is weird about shifting from 4th to 3rd, etc. It has a slew of electrical problems. The back door lock is broken.

HOLY HELL THAT'S MY VOLVO STATION WAGON.

3:00pm - release community car
3:30pm - call it in stolen

That sounds like it has greatest roffle potential. How long do you think it could go in a high speed chase?

― Jessie the Monster (scarymonsterrr), Monday, 5 June 2006 21:35 (nineteen years ago)

It would say COMMUNITY CAR all over it; it would not be hard for police to spot and/or return, at which point you would probably be suspected of some form of fraud.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 5 June 2006 21:36 (nineteen years ago)

ditch the engine and transmission. remove axles. go to home depot and get necessary items to build a hoist. employ a group of friends to help with heavy lifting. find someone with a suitably big deck (preferably someone you don't like). haul axles up to said deck. use improvised hoist and borrowed muscle power to leave your volvo on someone's back porch.

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 00:34 (nineteen years ago)

Is it a 240 or a 7-something? I took a lot of rides in a 240 station wagon with truck suspension and tires, which was occasionally entertaining.

I dunno, drive it in the direction of your choice until it dies?

― Holy makkara, Toivo! (OutDatWay), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 00:40 (nineteen years ago)

Touche!
Also, Volvo wagon = made of steel = will pwn a demolition derby.

-- mummy wrapped in bacon (nickaliciou...), June 6th, 2006 3:46 AM. (later)

And, being a Volvo, you wouldn't have to alter your driving habits to win it.

IF this $2,100.00 tax back you get from donating it works, do it. Otherwise, since it's insured, drive it somewhere, torch it, report stolen.

― S- (sgh), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 00:42 (nineteen years ago)

i don't know how it is where you live, but in new england in the summer there are plenty of demolition derbys at the state fairs.

― kephm (kephm), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 00:45 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.4wheelingplus.com/images/zman_jasmine_chloe_monster_.jpg/image.gif

― Paul Kelly (kelly), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 00:59 (nineteen years ago)

You have to back up your charitable donation value claims with a record of the actual sales price as of a few months ago, so probably you'll only get to deduct ~$700. If you're in luck it may be that the charity can actually perform some of the fixing it needs, and it will sell for more.

― nickn (nickn), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 01:08 (nineteen years ago)

Also not verifiable just now, but it's my understanding that Volvos aren't allowed in demos - at least in Vermont. Too hard to destroy em. That shifting problem sounds like it could be a kickdown cable adjustment or replacement. Should be under a hundred bucks. Electrical problems seem to run rampant in these cars especially 240s made prior to 1988. I...uh, know this.

Advertise it or inquire about it on the brickboard. 240/740-minded Volvophiles thrive on this sort of adventure.

― jim wentworth (wench), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 01:21 (nineteen years ago)

derek, along the same lines as leaving it on someone's back deck, remove the engine and transmission, acquire a couple of pontoons, set adrift in humboldt park lagoon.

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 13:55 (nineteen years ago)

I'm going to go ahead and give it away:

http://www.derekerdman.com/volvo.htm

― hyde park records (colonel), Sunday, 18 June 2006 02:32 (nineteen years ago)

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