Anyone participate in the cash for clunkers (CARS) rebate program?

[Zivman]

Just curious how things went.

We (I say we because we bought a truck to be used on the farm) traded in a 91 ford F150 extended cab 4x4 for a 4500 rebate we used towards a '09 F150 supercrew FX4.

the 91 had the following issues:
broken u-joint on front axle
leaking rear brakes
failing/leaking PS pump
failing trans -> slipping and rarely goes in to OD
and blew a tire on the drive in

The program was a joke. We did the deal on Monday (last day of the program). We called around looking for a truck and NO local Ford dealers will still making deals with the program. some had quit doing CARS deals 2 weeks prior. We had to go out 50 miles into WI to find a truck.

Deal was done (papers signed) around 3 pm. CARS rebate had to be submitted by 7 pm central time. No problem, we have 4 hrs..... Gov't submission site was down nearly the entire day. I sat at the dealership for a few hrs untill I had to take a loaner car home as the dealer wouldn't release the truck till the forms were submitted.

The gov't ended up extending the submission end date. Dealer ended up driving the truck to us on Tuesday after succussfully submitting the paperwork on Tuesday morning.

Doubt I will be saving the environment with my ford that has a 5.4 litre motor and 36 gallon fuel tank. though it is rated at 15mpg vs the clunker's rating of 13mpg

[Lento]

^Good for you, sounds like you made out well.

My cousin did it and got out of a truck he had hand painted back in highschool for $4500 and bought a Nissan Versa.


The whole MPG thing is a joke, its basicly a tax that we will pay eventually, but to make it sound good and because "being green" is in vouge, they went with that.

If it were up to me it seems stupid that a person who has been saving up for a GT-R can't get a $4,500 credit which gets 20 MPG (Straight up or trading in a clunker), but like in your case you get a discount for a truck that gets 15 mpg.

Hell I'm still going to be paying the tax for it eventually.

I'm just bitter because I didn't get any money but you got a sweet deal out of it.

[cwerdna]

There are lots of people who went thru some bad experiences, got jerked around, were really worried b/c the money was initially going to run out so quickly, etc. on Priuschat.com. I didn't bother reading them all since I have no clunker to trade in nor am I in the market... I got the general flavor of it though...

Some were pissed off because fueleconomy.gov listed their car as having 18 mpg the whole time and then just right before, their car got bumped to 19 mpg (long story and lots of media coverage on this) so they no longer qualified. Example cars that I know hit this: 91 Camry 2.5L V6 and 91 Lexus ES250 (Camry twin).

Originally Posted by Lento

The whole MPG thing is a joke, its basicly a tax that we will pay eventually, but to make it sound good and because "being green" is in vouge, they went with that.

If it were up to me it seems stupid that a person who has been saving up for a GT-R can't get a $4,500 credit which gets 20 MPG (Straight up or trading in a clunker), but like in your case you get a discount for a truck that gets 15 mpg.

The program was stupid in that it favored SUVs and trucks so much (http://www.edmunds.com/cash-for-clun...ulus-bill.html). Let's say someone w/a 19 mpg clunker car (misses the cutoff) and wants to buy a 50 mpg Prius or 41 mpg Insight: No cash for them.

Yet, someone who buys an exempt (from fuel economy testing) category 3 "truck" and buys a similar sized or smaller one gets $3500. Someone with a category 3 "truck" buying a 15 mpg truck also gets $3500. Someone w/a 15 mpg "truck" and gets a 17 mpg truck gets $4500.

For a car, you have to get a 10 mpg improvement to receive $4500.

Notable examples of category 3 "trucks": most Lincoln Navigators, Hummer H1 and H2, Ford Excursion. There are some more examples listed at http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/which_tested.shtml

At least the program did help (although argue the cost was WAY too high for the amount of improvement). Per http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/26/auto...e=yahoo_quote:

The average vehicle purchased under the program had fuel economy of 24.9 mpg in combined city and highway driving compared to an average of 15.8 mpg for vehicles being traded in.

That's an average fuel economy improvement of about 58%. The new vehicles being purchased also had 19% better fuel economy than the average vehicle available on the market today.

[GHOST1207]

My dad's old '87 Toyota T100 didn't qualify, something to do with it being 1 mpg over the limit, he was trying to buy a brand new Tacoma.

[cwerdna]

If people are curious about how smoothly (or not) C4C went for some people trying to get Priuses, skim threads like:
http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii-...ng-insite.html
http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii-...tml#post932910
http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii-...er-dealer.html

[GalvatronType_R]

On a side note, I can't help but be amused at the people who took advantage of this program. I'm willing to bet that many of the almost 700k car sold were to people who rail against government handouts and wasteful social programs and people being on the public dole yet they have no problem with taking $3500-$4500 worth of a government handout when it benefits them. People are such hypocrites.

[jackie chan]

Originally Posted by GalvatronType_R

On a side note, I can't help but be amused at the people who took advantage of this program. I'm willing to bet that many of the almost 700k car sold were to people who rail against government handouts and wasteful social programs and people being on the public dole yet they have no problem with taking $3500-$4500 worth of a government handout when it benefits them. People are such hypocrites.

not that I participated(well I did on the selling side), but calling people hypocrites(middle class) that pay in tens of thousands of dollars in income taxes throughout their lives and see zero benefits from it take advantage of a stupid gubment giveaway, is a little ridiculous.

[Hexxus]

There's going to be a lot of cars repossessed in the next year.

[Zivman]

Originally Posted by GalvatronType_R

On a side note, I can't help but be amused at the people who took advantage of this program. I'm willing to bet that many of the almost 700k car sold were to people who rail against government handouts and wasteful social programs and people being on the public dole yet they have no problem with taking $3500-$4500 worth of a government handout when it benefits them. People are such hypocrites.

I sure as hell will badmouth the politicians that dreamed up the stupid program at the same time I got a 4500 rebate.

[GalvatronType_R]

Originally Posted by jackie chan

not that I participated(well I did on the selling side), but calling people hypocrites(middle class) that pay in tens of thousands of dollars in income taxes throughout their lives and see zero benefits from it take advantage of a stupid gubment giveaway, is a little ridiculous.

I stand by what I posted earlier. Cash for clunkers was a serious waste of money and an unnecessary government handout that mostly benefited people who could afford those cars without a stupid social program.

[350zroadster]

Don't forget the auto industry benefitted from this and they NEEDED it

[gatti-man]

Originally Posted by Hexxus

There's going to be a lot of cars repossessed in the next year.

Yup. God bless America.

[silverbullet_Z]

Yea Aaron my Uncle got a hell of a deal on his clunker he had. A 1989 2wd Chevy extended cab S-10 pickup truck with 180k on it. I couldnt believe they gave him $4500 on it or even accepted it for that matter. He ended up buying a brand new Honda Fit..

[06dieselZ]

i was gonna do it but they didn't want to budge at all on the msrp of the truck.
they still wanted to sell me a 4x2 ford supercrew for about 31k after everything

[cwerdna]

The chart on the right side of http://www.detnews.com/article/20090...kers++wraps+up has a lot of great stats.

[jackie chan]

Originally Posted by cwerdna

The chart on the right side of http://www.detnews.com/article/20090...kers++wraps+up has a lot of great stats.

I love how the author of that article took all of his time thinking up the title, but not doing the research to elaborate on the cause. Days supply of inventory was a huge factor in the falling off domestic sales. We are down to about %25 of the normal amount of inventory we would normally carry.

[cwerdna]

Originally Posted by jackie chan

I love how the author of that article took all of his time thinking up the title, but not doing the research to elaborate on the cause. Days supply of inventory was a huge factor in the falling off domestic sales. We are down to about %25 of the normal amount of inventory we would normally carry.

Uhhh, low inventories were cited several times. Some quotes from the article:
"Low inventories cited in sinking U.S. share of incentive program" [below the headline]

"The U.S.-based companies said they were hampered by a comparative shortage of small, fuel-efficient vehicles that buyers were seeking..."

""We started out hot and near the end, lean inventories had some effect," said GM spokesman Greg Martin."

"Chrysler noted that it didn't produce any vehicles for nearly two months during its bankruptcy stay in early spring and summer, and had a 12 percent share in the early days of the program.

"The drop occurred in August when we had very low supply of our high mpg vehicles. We are building vehicles for customer orders and replenishing dealer inventories," Chrysler said in a statement. "