the car, Chamber of Secrets Questions

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I was wondering why Arthur Weasley never tried to re-claim his missing
car. Seems that he'd want to get it back to keep anyone from
discovering his magically altered muggle artifact. :>)

He may have thought the car was doing a better job of keeping itself
hidden than he could. After all, he couldn't drive it anymore since it
was evidence of a crime. He'd be nabbed the minute it was seen, or if
he had possession of it and didn't turn it over, he'd be more of a
criminal himself.

He'd already been fined for having made it. And the whole episode puts the
lie to his earlier excuse, the loophole he built into the law, that if he
hadn't intended to use the magical elements it was legal to have put them
in. So either the law was being ignored in order to extend its
application, or he didn't write that loophole well enough to mean what he
thought it meant, or they got him for having left it where someone else
could have stolen it, e.g., a muggle might have (old and rusty as it was).
Or the fine was because, as the parent, he was responsible for what Ron
did. (Which means he was darned lucky that Fred and George never got
caught.)
By the way, it just occurred to me - why didn't Harry and Ron just wait
for Ron's parents to come back to the car? Surely they wouldn't have
Apparated home and left the car in London. Once the boys had
demonstrated that the gate wouldn't open for them, Arthur could have
pulled some strings to get them to school somehow, maybe by Floo powder to
a standard arrival location in Hogsmeade and from there to the school.

In the book, McGonagal asks why Harry and Ron didn't just send an owl to Hogwarts advising of their problem. Harry and Ron say that they simply didn't thik of that solution!

Harry did suggest waiting by the car in the book! Ron then got the idea of flying it to Hogwarts.

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By the way, it just occurred to me - why didn't Harry and Ron just wait
for Ron's parents to come back to the car? Surely they wouldn't have
Apparated home and left the car in London. Once the boys had
demonstrated that the gate wouldn't open for them, Arthur could have
pulled some strings to get them to school somehow, maybe by Floo powder to
a standard arrival location in Hogsmeade and from there to the school.

They couldn't get back from the Platform.

I don't recall it being stated in either book or movie that Mr and Mrs Weasely couldn't get back through the gate. I would have liked to have seen them banging on the gate with their fists!