More On The Totaled Car

After some additional consultation with my Attorney, he has advised the following:

If you do not want to keep the car, I will advise you to contact the lender
to make arrangements to surrender it to them. Once your bankruptcy is on
file, then they can make no claim against you. The debt to them will be
considered unsecured at that point and you will be able to discharge that
debt in bankruptcy.

My concern was mostly that if I surrendered the car to them, they would be able to add the charges for the recovery to my debt. The point is, if they take the car back, then I no longer have in my possession the item I purchased from them on loan. Even if they added their costs to my debt, that debt would be discharged, effectively eliminating the costs altogether. In addition, surrendering the car to them would mean no more calls from them, no more totaled car taking up all the space in my garage, and no more concern for how I'm going to get rid of the thing after the bankruptcy is final, which is the soonest I would have the title to be able to sell it as salvage.

I'll be contacting the lender tomorrow to make arrangements for them to come pick up the car.