I hope this is the right forum for this...

A friend of mine has a 1991 Q45, ~180k miles.

Even though he has put quite a bit of $$ into it, it still has quite a few problems. I'm looking for advice on what best to do with the car...

He just had a used transmission put in, so it drives now - but when the shop did that ($1200), they informed him that he also has a clogged catalytic converter which would be another $450 to fix. Apparently without this, the car cannot pass emmissions.

He brought the car over, and I immediately noticed a couple of other things:

1) It makes a sound like a machine gun or typewriter, faster or slower with throttle,

2) It has pretty bad rust behind rear wheelwells,

3) The rear right window is taped up (else it apparently falls down).

4) The seats are not in very nice shape

On the plus side, aside from the wheelwell rust (which has been coated with black rust converter), the rest of the car looks pretty nice on the outside, the air conditioning works great, the transmission works great, and it has been maintained well as far as oil changes, etc. Plus, he has a second set of wheels for it (fancier I guess - haven't seen them).

I personally think he should stop putting $$$ into this thing and get rid of this car, but what is the best way to do this? Without passing emmissions, it's a tough sell - but this thing should have some value as a parts car shouldn't it?

Are there some key parts that have more value when pulled? What should he expect a parts place to offer for something like this??

I suppose if he was mechanically inclined, he could fix this thing up - but when paying a shop to do everything, it just doesn't make sense...

Any thoughts most appreciated. Thanks