anyone here ditch a clunker?

Oh, I thought this thread was going to be about ex-husbands. Sorry. I don't know.

YUP! Ditched the bf a year ago July!

Now THAT would be a good incentive program. Cash rebates for ex's. I WOULD BE SO RICH BY NOW!

My husband works for a dealer (in the parts department not sales). the car must be a 95 or NEWER. It has to get 18 MPG or less and the new vehicle has to get at least 8 MPG better than the one you are trading in. 10 MPG better gets you a bigger incentive.

As for how painless it is I have no idea. I do know it's not pretty what they do do the cars turned in under the program. They have to drain the oil and pour liquid glass into the engine and run it until it seizes up. The dealership can't remove any parts off of it before it's sent to the recycling company or they won't get the money from the government.

JLM said:

My husband works for a dealer (in the parts department not sales). the car must be a 95 or NEWER. It has to get 18 MPG or less and the new vehicle has to get at least 8 MPG better than the one you are trading in. 10 MPG better gets you a bigger incentive.

As for how painless it is I have no idea. I do know it's not pretty what they do do the cars turned in under the program. They have to drain the oil and pour liquid glass into the engine and run it until it seizes up. The dealership can't remove any parts off of it before it's sent to the recycling company or they won't get the money from the government.

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what the hell. thats bizarre.

Hm. Who are these "recycling companies" and who are their friends??

jennontheisland said:

Hm. Who are these "recycling companies" and who are their friends??

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Probably someone supplying something to China.

The original idea was that these "clunkers" were so bad for the environment they needed to be removed from the roads not resold. These are the definitions that were put in place to do it.

qw has been throwing out clunkers all day long!






thank you. you've been great! thank you.

JLM is right on track. Link.

I couldn't take advantage of it because my old car was 1994 Cav which was rated at 27 mpg.

So the Cash for Clunkers name, I think, is a misnomer. It's cash for gas guzzlers... ;-)

We ditched a clunker a few weeks ago. Then we traded the cars we still had. My son got my car, I got my husband's car (a 2007), and he got a new car.

It's 1985 or newer, not 1995. My husband is currently picking up his new Smart, turning in the 1990 8 cyl 3/4 ton diesel truck. It is a shame about the parts. It has a brand new $625 starter on it.

Fairly painless as far as the process goes.

I think Laurie's hubby sells cars, she might be good to ask.

Personally I'd say buy a Toyota. They're completely bomb-proof. Seriously. I've never had a bad Toyota. They tried killing a Hilux on Top Gear a few years back and they couldn't do it. Among other things, they drowned it in the ocean, set it on fire, and blew up a building with the car on the roof - and it still worked, every time.

And yes, I drive a Caldina, and it's the best car I've ever had.

Cars were getting 30 or more MPG for better for thirty years now, how did we go backwards? "We can send a man to space..." is obsolete, we now have people living there, and that's a good thing because we'll all have to live there soon.

Yeah, we did. The timing couldn't have been better for us. We ditched a starting-to-go-sour Chevy Blazer.

It worked wonderfully, except that it was my husband's turn to get a car and now I have to constantly swat the devil off my left shoulder. He keeps insisting that if I'd just hold the pillow down for a few minutes, the new Mazda could be all mine.

Zoom zoom.

JLM said:

...
As for how painless it is I have no idea. I do know it's not pretty what they do do the cars turned in under the program. They have to drain the oil and pour liquid glass into the engine and run it until it seizes up. The dealership can't remove any parts off of it before it's sent to the recycling company or they won't get the money from the government.

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Here's the start of the process, as shown in this video from a few weeks ago. I think one of the guys says "That dodge over there only lasted 8 seconds:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waj2KrKYTZo
The car might have had a lot of miles on it, but with the engine lasting that long, it probably had another 100,000 miles on it. But It's A "Clunker..."

From there they're apparently crushed, and then the steel in them is recycled (that's right, they DON'T even go to a junkyard to be used as spare parts), "hopefully" built into higher-mileage vehicles. Or maybe into high-rise buildings with steel that doesn't melt in burning jet fuel...(woops, sorry, wrong conspiracy).

Wayne K said:

Cars were getting 30 or more MPG for better for thirty years now, how did we go backwards? "We can send a man to space..." is obsolete, we now have people living there, and that's a good thing because we'll all have to live there soon.

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The saying was more something like "They can send a man to the Moon, why can't they..." And yeah, there are people living in space, only 300 miles up, but that's still a heck of an accomplishment.

But the mileage thing has to do with the loopholes in the CAFE standards - vehicles built on a truck chassis and having a gross weight over some amount were basically exempt from higher gas mileage requirements, and that's where the popularity of the huge gas-sucking SUV's such as the Lincoln Navigator came from.

And in the last decade or two, engine technology has been advancing so they could make the small cars of 20 years ago with even BETTER mileage now. But no, that's not what sells cars - what happened is they made the more efficient engines bigger, so they still barely fall within the mandated mileage, but the cars have more acceleration than older models. Acceleration apparently sells more cars than does super-high gas mileage.

Mela said:

But that's my question: Does anyone know how the dealers determine for which rebate you qualify? Anyone done this? Was it an easy - painless - experience?

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So, you need these two sites:

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/

http://www.cars.gov/


Beyond that, it was very easy. It's the easiest car buying experience we've had, but the Mazda dealership was particularly well-run. Go test drive some cars. Know what you want. The rest is pretty straight forward.

The program is a mess. Delays, new rules, more government workers hired, car dealers frustrated, consumers angry.

Just another day in the life of a government run program.

Check it out for yourself:

http://www.jsonline.com/business/53518102.html

Ambrosia said:

It's 1985 or newer, not 1995.

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You're right clearly my brain misfired.

Ambrosia said:

It's 1985 or newer.

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Then I'm out.

Just when I need a used car, everyone's getting theirs destroyed. What if I like gas guzzlers? I'd give a left arm up for these cars.

We went to do it, but we ended up with a better deal on a 2007 with only 20K miles on it, so we just did a straight trade-in. We traded a minivan in for a crossover Mazda5.

I have a friend who successfully did it with a 1984, though he said they had to find the exact date of manufacture of that individual truck.

The saleswoman we dealt with said the whole program was the best thing that had happened to them in the past year. The rules were a pain until they figured out how to do it correctly, and it was a breeze.