Helping a friend

My friend,
Thank  you for  the kind words. It worked out very well, didn't it my friend? For those who may have no idea what Doug  and I are talking about here is "rest of the story".
My friend bought a beautiful 1997 BMW 840CI some time ago and drove it up to the Seattle area. In short order he found himself unable to drive the car due to unforeseen circumstances. For any number of reasons the car was relegated to sitting, unprotected in the back yard of a Bothell mechanic's home for about five years. That is when I asked my friend if he would like to put "Plan T.I.M." into action. After some time my friend agreed to let me give it a go and I was off and running.
Step one was to procure the car. That took a little doing because the mechanic was a schmuck. To accomplish this I rented a UHaul trailer and headed north to Bothell to snag the car from the clutches of the aforementioned evil mechanic. Meeting with him was more than a little awkward, I must say. He was not a nice man. Be that as it may, a friend helped me load the car on to the trailer and off we went. Upon our arrival in Gig Harbor we put the car in the storage facility and I returned the UHaul.
Next came the clean up. Apparently, over the five years the car was outside the engine compartment became home to a fair number of bees. The hives were seemingly everywhere. I even found a few underneath the gas cap access door. Go figure! To counter this, I pressure washed the entire car. Yuch!
It became obvious that the longer I waited to sell this car the more opportunities there would be for problems to arise. Sitting outside for five years was not kind to this vehicle (a gross understatement!). I endeavored to persevere.
After some preliminary mechanical work on the car I parked the car in the storage area and began my pursuit of a title. It took over three months to get my hands on a valid California title but I did get it. Believe it or not three months was much quicker than normal thanks to a special operations unit attached the the California DMV.
Title in hand, I listed the car on Craigslist. I had two suitors right away. The first buyer was a fast talker who wanted to take the car for a test drive. We headed out. He knew the car was powerful so he stepped on the gas, not once but twice. Remarkably, the car responded beautifully. Then it happened.
A radiator hose blew and water was streaming from the engine compartment to the windshield with smoke following closely behind. "On a test drive?" I thought. "Are you freekin' kidding me?"!  We nursed the car back to our departure point where a mechanic took a look at it. Turns out the entire radiator was gone. I had no idea what to say to this guy except, "Thanks for coming". He still wanted the car so we set a price, much lower than I hoped. With a transaction meeting set for the next day I arrived on time. He failed to show. Undeterred, I promptly raised the price of the car and called the second suitor. It worked. The car was sold that day at the higher price.
The agreement I reached with my friend was the following: I would take care of the car and absorb all expenses associated with getting the car ready to sell then recoup my costs upon sale. That was all I wanted. The rest of the money, about 3/4 of the sales price, went to my friend. That was it.
From start to finish the "T.I.M. Plan" for the BMW took about 4 months. It really did work out well.
The primary goal was 1. Not to allow the "schmuck" mechanic in Bothell to let a fine car rust into oblivion and, 2. To get some money into my friend's pocket prior to the holidays. I accomplished both.
Altruistic? My boy, don't give me so much credit. I really wanted to see if I could meet those two objectives and I truly enjoyed doing this for a life long friend.
In closing I must say I learned two very important lessons from this little adventure:
1. Helping folks can be a great, rewarding adventure.
2. I am forever and eternally A TOYOTA/LEXUS MAN!
Happy New Year to all of the 69'ers.
Tim