Got a clunker?

Bedlam · Aug 3, 2009

double Orange I agree people will over buy and default. But then there the Bankruptcy bailout

Uncle Doug · Aug 4, 2009

What smells funny about the whole deal is that all of a sudden all of the dealer rebates have dropped to its lowest level in the past year. When I bought my 2008 F150 Supercrew last October the dealer rebates were about $10,000. While looking around for any "deals" this week most rebates are only about $2,500 - 3,500.

People are flocking to the dealers to get in on the Clunker deals thinking they are getting a great deal. The only deal they are getting is being able to unload a older high mileage vehicle for a price they could not get on the street.

Most could of got a better new car deal months ago.

rcrcomputing · Aug 4, 2009

Destroying them when so many people financially distressed could really use them is unforgivable.

dmccarty · Aug 4, 2009

Is the Cash for Clunkers helping the US auto companies or Honda and Toyota? Or to put it another way is my tax money being used to boost Toyota's and Honda's profit?

According to a report that I heard this morning car sales are going up to due Cash for Clunkers. If new car sales are going up and used cars are removed from the used car market does this mean prices will be going up on new AND used cars?

How about just giving me my money back and let me spend it to boost the economy....

Later,
Dan

jk96 · Aug 4, 2009

The goal of the legislation is to increase the sale of new cars (the only ones that impact present employment statistics) and remove from circulation older vehicles that were high emmitters of CO2 (= higher fuel consumption). If the older vehicles were permitted to stay on the road, they would simply be used by people less well off than the original owner and continue sucking large amounts of gas.

If people would like to get to the point where it may not be neccersary having sons and daughters in foreign countries securing oil supplies to the US, it is clear that there has to be a shift to vehicles with lower fuel consumption. Thank God that finally the US consumer is actually starting to see some sensible options in this regard.

What I would like to see is the statistics on the trade off between the CO2 saved by the new fuel efficiant car vs the remaining life span of the "clunker" and how much CO2 was put into the air to manufacture the new car.

Duffster · Aug 4, 2009

jk96 said:
What I would like to see is the statistics on the trade off between the CO2 saved by the new fuel efficiant car vs the remaining life span of the "clunker" and how much CO2 was put into the air to manufacture the new car.

Ditto

I don't think they ever take things like this into account.

two_bit_score · Aug 4, 2009

2manyrocks said:
Dave Ramsey was blasting the program last week. I think he said he drove a $200 clunker for a while after he first went broke. Saved his money and hen traded to a something like a $1000 clunker, and kept repeating the process until he could have a decent car again. In the last 20 years since that happened, he hasn't had a car payment. His take on the whole thing is the govt., who has no money itself, is trying to get people to go into debt to buy new cars they can't afford. He said it made as much financial sense as the whole mortgage mess.

The one thing guarranteed to keep a working man poor is a new car.

two_bit_score · Aug 4, 2009

Uncle Doug said:
What smells funny about the whole deal is that all of a sudden all of the dealer rebates have dropped to its lowest level in the past year. When I bought my 2008 F150 Supercrew last October the dealer rebates were about $10,000. While looking around for any "deals" this week most rebates are only about $2,500 - 3,500.

People are flocking to the dealers to get in on the Clunker deals thinking they are getting a great deal. The only deal they are getting is being able to unload a older high mileage vehicle for a price they could not get on the street.

Most could of got a better new car deal months ago.

And they will be able to again. As soon as the government money is all spent up.

capt jack · Aug 4, 2009

I think it was a Will Rodgers Quote (I could be wrong about who said it )
"any elected offical that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on Pauls vote!!" I hope we get a chance to kick all their a...s out of office before they pass a bill to do away with the silly practice of elections.
Jack