I am home safe thanks to a friend, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about dealing with this. The car is dead as a doornail but I don't know how to handle disposing of it. Never done it before. Any advice?
So tired and frustrated. This is going to mess me up so bad.
If you're in America and in towing distance of a Carmax (maybe use a AAA tow) they will buy it. You'll probably get like $100 but they'll take the title off your hands and do the DMV shit and sell it to a scrapyard if you don't want to deal with it.
disposing
Shouldn't you have a mechanic look at it first? Or is it too old?
Not a native speaker of English, so is Gave up the ghost = totalled?
Yes, sorry for speaking so idiomatically. It means that something 'gave up its ghost' because it died and the ghost is no longer in the body.
It's an old car and was in an accident recently. Just getting some panels replaced cost about 1/5 of the price of the car so mechanical work is probably a non-starter.
It's usually too hard to get the magic smoke back in so easier to just write it off
Call a mechanic, or if you're sure it's dead, call a scrapyard with a truck.
Do they come out quickly do you know? I had to leave it at a gas station off the highway.
Assuming you have relatively close options, call around. You should be able to get a tow pretty easily,, but you will want to find a mechanic first, unless you are SURE the vehicle is dead, so that you can tell the truck driver where to take it.
Else they can scrap it, (assuming it's broke) or take it to their yard for holding, which they'll charge you extortionate rent for.
Depends on the problem, some fixes are pretty cheap. More so if you can do them yourself. Not saying it will be cheap, could be completely fucked, but best to know what’s up.
For what it’s worth I’ve done some fairly major repairs on my cars over the years, sometimes on my own, sometimes with the aid of a friend and a crate of beer. Between YouTube (Haynes Manuals back in the day) and two minds you’ll be suprised how easy it is to do.
