C4C sad day

Cash for Clunkers.

I was driving over to drop some parts off for Jes and saw a Comanche in a dealers lot. Stop walked up and looked it over. It was in better shape than most of my fleet. Salesman states flatly, sorry it's a cash for clunker. Over half the vehicles in the lot were worth more than my vehicles and with the exception of the spousal units 2009 Traverse in better shape than mine also. There were four mercedes in the lot w/ C4C scribbled on the window.

Cash for Clunkers missed the mark. Good idea that was not well thought out. It benefitted two groups of people, a few car saleman and those that were thinking about buying a car but just needed a litle incentive to get off high center. It did not benefit the people who really drive clunkers, the working poor, nor have the greatest chance of positive impact stimulating the economy.

A better thought out program would have allowed people driving real clunkers, eye sores and gross polluters the ability to trade up to these nicer/better running vehicles.

A better thought out program would have limited the vehicles available for purchase to those ASSEMBLED in the US, possibly extended to Canada or Mexico.

A better thought out program would have allowed collectors to take the classics for parts.

Just my unsolicited 2 cents.

i completely agree

Yes, many of the vehicles traded in for C4C are(were) FAR nicer and more fuel efficient than my crappy daily driver.

I wonder who ultimately will pay for the program? Hmmm...

That's right it benefited people who could afford a new car payment and therefore probably already had a newish car. It did nothing for people driving the real clunkers, who could not afford a new car either this year or last year.

No surprises here.....I have a buddy who's family owns several dealerships ( his Chrysler/Jeep stores got the axe) and he has 48 C4C cars that he hasn't seen a dime from the government yet.

I wonder how many comanches are left. Can't be too many.

all of the C4Cs will be compacted in 6 months. hit the junk yards now..

"A better thought out program would have limited the vehicles available for purchase to those ASSEMBLED in the US, possibly extended to Canada or Mexico."

I read that 80% of the new cars purchased with the C4C program were imports. It absolutely missed the mark and could have been done much better.

And now the people that couldn't manage a used-car trade-in program, are taking over the health care industry.

Yeah. That's a good idea.

Robert

AL BUNDY said:

"A better thought out program would have limited the vehicles available for purchase to those ASSEMBLED in the US, possibly extended to Canada or Mexico."

I read that 80% of the new cars purchased with the C4C program were imports. It absolutely missed the mark and could have been done much better.

Click to expand...

But how many of those imports were made here? That's the sad thing. When unions have made it too expensive for the domestically owned companies to build here and remain competitive while the foreign owned companies are moving here and building their cars here in America because they don't have union contracts to worry about. Nissan builds their trucks here, Toyota's truck are built here, and I think the Camry is as well, Mercedes has a plant in AL, BMW is in SC, Honda has a couple, yet Chevy is largely built in Canada and Mexico, Ford is Mexico and their best cars are designed in Europe. So it's either buy an American car and support a company based here or buy a Japanese or German car and support American workers...

Darky said:

But how many of those imports were made here? That's the sad thing. When unions have made it too expensive for the domestically owned companies to build here and remain competitive while the foreign owned companies are moving here and building their cars here in America because they don't have union contracts to worry about. Nissan builds their trucks here, Toyota's truck are built here, and I think the Camry is as well, Mercedes has a plant in AL, BMW is in SC, Honda has a couple, yet Chevy is largely built in Canada and Mexico, Ford is Mexico and their best cars are designed in Europe. So it's either buy an American car and support a company based here or buy a Japanese or German car and support American workers...

Click to expand...

BAM!

x2.

AL BUNDY said:

"A better thought out program would have limited the vehicles available for purchase to those ASSEMBLED in the US, possibly extended to Canada or Mexico."

I read that 80% of the new cars purchased with the C4C program were imports. It absolutely missed the mark and could have been done much better.

Click to expand...

C4C should never have happened in the first place. It created a gnat-sized blip on the ecomomic improvement scale and no matter how much Green you slather on the campaign, made a net impact on pollution of near zero.

The entitlement welfare programs need to be stopped......I'm sick of paying for other people's stuff. I you want something, work for it, save for it and buy it yourself. If there is a true charitable need in my community, I will give willingly, but don't take my money from me to use as you see fit on programs that I disapprove of.

Taxation with Representation!

"it's either buy an American car and support a company based here or buy a Japanese or German car and support American workers..."

Excellent point & also the problem.

Just how many people jumped on this opportunity will ultimately find out they are in over their head and can't make their payments. We will be bailing them out within a year!!!
:soapbox:



BOB

clean96XJ said:

all of the C4Cs will be compacted in 6 months. hit the junk yards now..

Click to expand...

Most of them are still sitting on the dealers' lots. They are not letting them go until the government pays them.

I go to dealers' back lots all the time as part of my job. And each dealer has a little section in the back where the cars are just collecting dust.

News at noon said Edmunds is reporting that as many as 25,000 "clunkers" are being rejected by the feds.

Depending on what waivers they signed, a lot of buyers are going to have to repay the $4500. In cash. All at once.

Good.

Buyin' a new, $30,000 car, using my tax dollars. Upper middle class welfare is all it is.

Robert

Gee whiz - and I somehow think they'll still be liable for that $4500 even if they return the car - which will screw things up (economically) even worse than they already are!

The United Autoworkers are slitting their own collective throats. Toyota has a plant out here in Fremont (or is it still NUMI?) Subaru/Isuzu has one in Lafayette, IN (one of my old high school buddies is a line manager there,) in additon to the plants already mentioned. The Japanese don't allow organisation - they just take care of their people.

I'm willing to bet the Europeans are the same way.

And (this is coming from a former Union man and Shop Steward,) the time for utility of tradesmen's unions has come and gone. They served their purpose - and got a lot of worker protection laws passed. Now, they're just pushing the matter, and causing far more trouble than they're worth.

I've had family in UAW, USW, Carpenters & Framers, Plumbers & Steamfitters, and IBEW - and they're all saying much the same thing - it's getting harder to find work for scale when "scale" keeps going up for no good reason.

So, how to break it all up? I don't know...

http://wbztv.com/local/cash.for.clunkers.2.1136137.html?detectflash=false

Some dealers had started holding onto cars sold under the program until they got paid by the gov't. One had 115 new cars waiting to be delivered to their new owners because they hadn't gotten any money out of the gov't.