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Automotive News & Views Cash for Clunkers - Good or Bad Idea?
4110 messages, Last post on Nov 23, 2009 at 11:42 AM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
For questions about how the program works or to discuss program details, please visit our discussion titled, "Cash for Clunkers - Does it Work for You?"
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Nov 05, 2009 7:04 am) The flaw in the law did not allow the truck owner to buy a high mileage car for his commute. If the 12 MPG truck was traded for a the 50 MPG Prius the savings over 15k miles would be 950 gallons of gas. I agree that the compromise was to unload a pile of trucks backed up on the car lots. I think you will be hard pressed to get 19 MPG from a Ford F150. Most will buy the 5.4L V8 and get about 14-15 MPG. That will only save about 178 gallons per year. |
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Replying to: gagrice (Nov 04, 2009 10:03 pm) **** The actual Green plan would have been to make it apply only to used vehicles that met the more stringent standard of 10mph and apply it across the board no matter what you were trading in. And it wouldn't have mattered about the MPG, either. You could trade in a 25mpg Civic for a 35mpg Yaris and have been good. That way you really would get people out of trucks and SUVs and into cars. YOu would also re-use older decent condition vehicles instead of wasting resources producing new ones needlessly. The real problem with the entire program was that it didn't let people trade their older vehicles in for certified or similar vehicles and forced you to buy new. Also, it went off of original MPG instead of factoring in age or pollution levels, so my truck for instance got 19mpg officially. Yet I'd have gladly traded it in for a 29mpg used vehicle in a heartbeat. The last time it was smogged as well, it barely passed at nearly 250ppm. A 2-3 year old Civic, for instance, gets closer to 20-30 ppm. So I'm using more gas and polluting more and somehow the program doesn't apply to me... That seems counter-intuitive. Well, it would be if the real goal was to reduce pollution and get older clunkers off the road. Of course, it's clear to anyone that it wasn't. So 3 billion gets flushed down the drain and makes a small blip in the economy.
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Replying to: plekto (Nov 05, 2009 12:19 pm) I can see both sides of that argument. On one hand, it's more fair, because it doesn't discriminate against people who bought efficient cars to begin with. OTOH, that Civic would make a good, efficient used car, so why pay to take it out of circulation?
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Nov 05, 2009 7:23 am) As with the Home Buyer's credit, expect rules to be "relaxed' somewhat and perhaps a cap on the credit at $3,500. After the 4Q09 sales results are out in Jan10, I expect another C4C bill on the table by February. Me? I'll trade my '06 Lucerne in for 2010 compact sedan that gets 35 mpg hwy if they give me the $3,500. The Lucerne is paid off and I've got cash. No loan here.
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Leave it to the guvmint to provide a program which allowed gas hogs to trade up to a NEW gas hog !! HooRay for the GeniSES in ConGreffs !!!! About 1 in 7 of all deals went for vehicles that got 20 mpg or worse. If you think about it, though, 20 mpg really isn’t such a bad rate ... for 1979.
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Replying to: dodgeman07 (Nov 05, 2009 1:56 pm) I'll take it, and I haven't even seen it. |
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Replying to: ateixeira (Nov 05, 2009 2:45 pm) I expect the 2010 "CARS" rebate to be opened up to any new car purchase, allowing a $3500 credit for improved MPG. I'll take $11K for my Lucerne plus a $3500 for buying a new vehicle that averages 10mpg more than my car. I expect this to happen no later than March 2010. |
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Replying to: larsb (Nov 05, 2009 2:02 pm) It's far more important to get old gas guzzling clunkers off the road and kill them then to worry about the appearances. The Yahoo dope missed how beneficial it was to allow those 95000 truck owners to get rid of their clunkers. It was better to get these 95000 owners into new trucks than it would have for 95000 2004 Camry owners to trade up to 2010 Prius'. Significantly better. However I do agree with our buddy gagrice that barring truck owners from trading into cars was dumb, a bone thrown to the detroiters. |
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Replying to: dodgeman07 (Nov 05, 2009 2:52 pm) 15 mpg to 25 mpg saves 400 gal over 15000 miles ( F150 to I4 Fusion ) 20 mpg to 30 mpg saves 250 gal over 15000 miles ( V6 Malibu to Cobalt 30 mpg to 40 mpg saves 125 gal over 15000 miles ( Civic to Insight II ) However, a 5 mpg improvement.. 15 mpg to 20 mpg saves 250 gal over 15000 miles ( V8 Tundra to V6 Highlander ) Getting a driver to trade up from a Civic to an Insight II is frankly a waste of money. That money would be better spend getting the F150 driver into a Fusion. Now if a sliding scale of incentives were implemented.... Fuel saved per 15000 miles driven Over 100 gal up to 200 gal $1000...Civic to Insight II Up to 300 gal $2000..................... Malibu V6 to Cobalt, Tundra to Highlander Up to 400 gal $3000..................... F150 to Fusion I4 Over 400 gal $4000...................... Ram to Prius |
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Nov 05, 2009 3:15 pm) What's the really big deal is getting old cars off the road. I can guarantee that a 20 year old LeSabre pollutes 8-10x as much as most new cars, despite getting 24-25 mpg average. The pollution saved is the big deal, and new trucks hardly are any better than the old ones. The whole have to trade a truck for a truck part was also sheer idiocy. As for why take a 25 Civic off the road? Well, a 15 year old or so Civic is a polluting heap that's on its way out most likely. I see a lot of old commuter boxes like that that are falling apart - but they didn't qualify, either. Shoot, I wonder how many Neon owners would toss those things if they could.... probably every last one of them.
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Automotive News & Views Cash for Clunkers - Good or Bad Idea?
