A story of Cash for Clunkers... and how I got to drink beer at work.

"As Du Volant" (skuhnphoto) 02/27/2015 at 15:35 • Filed to: cash for clunkers, car sales

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A few months ago !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! I made a brief mention of Cash for Clunkers and had many people asking me to write about my experience with it. Today I'll tell you that story.

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How the Program Worked

For those who don't know, Cash for Clunkers (Officially known as the Car Allowance Rebate System or CARS) was a U.S. government backed program launched in July of 2009 with the goal of removing all the cheap used cars from the market and spending billions of taxpayer dollars kickstarting the economy by boosting car sales and reducing pollution/energy consumption by taking older and less efficient vehicles off the road. Taking place shortly after GM and Chrysler's bankruptcies, many hoped the CARS program would provide a shot in the arm for the struggling American automakers.

The premise was simple. If a customer traded their old, inefficient car for a brand new and more fuel-efficient one, they'd get a government rebate of either $3500 or $4500 applied to their new car purchase. The size of the rebate was tied to the increase in fuel efficiency of the new car. The rebate rules are pretty long and tedious so I'll save you all the details, but I can spell it out in the comments if anyone really wants to know.

After the deal was done each trade-in had its engine permanently disabled and was sent to a junkyard. The dealership then scanned and submitted a stack of paperwork via a barely-functioning government website to apply for compensation for each trade.

The Sales Experience

The best word I can use to describe selling cars during the Clunkers program is pandemonium. Not only was the government handing out money for new cars, Chrysler was too. They'd just announced a new program offering to match the government's rebate, meaning a customer could get up to $9000 off a new car before any dealer discount. We'd all been instructed to arrive at the dealership a half hour so we could be prepared for a busy day, but we had no idea how busy we'd be. Despite it being a Wednesday morning when most people would be at work we still had a group of customers waiting at the front doors when we showed up that day.

My first customers were a young woman and her parents. She owned an old Jeep Grand Cherokee with a badly slipping transmission. Seeing the value in the Clunkers program, her parents brought her in to help her purchase her first brand new car. She ended up getting a very nicely equipped new Jeep Patriot for about $13,000. The one snag in the deal was she wouldn't have her down payment money until the end of the next week. We finished the rest of the legwork for the deal (finance approval, insurance, etc.) and agreed to hold the car.

By lunchtime things were going full swing. Our phones were ringing off the hook and we had a showroom full of customers. We had a record-breaking day, then broke that record the next day, and broke that record the day after that. Everyone on the sales team worked 14+ hours per day and we didn't have the luxury of lunch breaks. Management set up an ongoing pizza buffet in the meeting room so we could run back and grab a slice in between customers.

I don't know what day of the week it is anymore, but this pizza sure is tasty.

The crowd finally slowed down about a week into it. By that time we were seriously low on inventory. You see, the timing of the Cash for Clunkers program was a double whammy for us. The model year changeover at Chrysler's factories takes place in midsummer. While the engineers are busy updating the tooling for any revised parts coming down the line the assembly workers take two weeks off. In a normal year we'd be enduring a bit of an inventory drought at that point in time, but this year Chrysler was also in the midst of a bankruptcy reorganization. Many of their vendors were only occasionally being paid, and that includes the auto transport companies. Thanks to this we were already short stocked when the program kicked off, and it only got worse as the sales rolled in.

Inventory continued to dwindle. When my first customer picked up her new Jeep Patriot we'd been sold out of the mini-Jeeps for days. Her Patriot still showed in the website inventory during that time and we'd taken about 100 phone calls on that car alone . The phone continued to ring off the hook, everyone asking if we had any CARS-eligible vehicles to sell. We didn't. We started turning away customers because we had nothing to sell them. In only a few weeks we'd liquidated almost our entire inventory.

Headaches

The CARS program had its issues as well. Being government-run it was chaos from the start. In the creation of the program they apparently hadn't asked the opinion of anyone with actual car business experience, as they grossly underestimated the public's response to free money for buying cars. When the program was conceived the Department of Transportation allocated $1 billion toward it and expected the funds to last from July 1 to November 1. A few days before the end of July they dropped a bomb on us: Funding was exhausted and if the dealership wanted to get paid we needed to submit the paperwork before midnight that night. Thanks to the website being horribly buggy we had a backlog of about a week's worth of paperwork to deal with, so we went into full-on panic mode. Our managers sent the salesmen home, locked the doors, and got started attempting to submit paperwork.

At about 10:30 that night I was settling down for a little TV before bed when my phone rang. It was one of our sales managers, calling in a panic. The scanner and computer had suddenly stopped talking to each other, they were having problems with the CARS website, and needed my help. Being the store's internet sales manager I was supposed to know a lot about such things (hint: I really don't, but I know how to use Google). I growled something about being right over, put my shoes on, and headed for the door.

Right as I was getting in my car the phone rang again; once again it was the sales manager. "Bring a case of beer," he said. "I'll pay you back when you get here."

I got to the dealership to find the three sales managers plus the F&I guy losing their minds. I fixed the scanner without much fuss, but the big issue was the CARS website. Every dealership in the country was frantically trying to submit paperwork at the same time. The servers were overloaded, the website down. There was nothing we could do so we sat down in the customer lounge and drank beer. We ended up ordering wings, watching baseball, and shooting the shit as we finished off the case.

The next day the government extended the deadline to file paperwork, and Congress soon approved an additional $2 billion which would keep the CARS program running for about another month. Not that we had any inventory.

The Final Days

There really wasn't too much going on at our dealership during the final bit of Cash for Clunkers. With our inventory shortage business slowed to a trickle and we mostly got by selling used cars. We did have one small bout of excitement, though. When Chrysler axed a bunch of dealerships back in May we'd purchased a truckload of vehicles from a defunct Dodge store in Virginia. They'd been caught up in a mess of botched title work ever since, but in August we finally got it cleared up and the truck was on its way, carrying five Dodge Calibers and two Grand Caravans. We all hurried to our phones and started calling every customer we could.

Seizing an opportunity our office manager reserved the first Caliber, trading in her rusted-out Ford F150. The last one went to a customer in Buffalo, about three hours away. He'd been calling every dealership in a constantly-expanding radius trying to find one, and offered us $500 over MSRP before we'd even told him the car's price. Every one of the cars was spoken for that day, before the truck even arrived.

When it was all over we had 15 cars left on a lot designed to hold over three hundred. A few days after the program wrapped up the auto transporters started rolling again. Thanks for the prompt shipments, guys!

The Trade-Ins

Until this point I've left out a big piece of the story: The trade-ins.

During Cash for Clunkers, outrageous stories were circling all over the internet. People were junking perfectly good Mercedes-Benzes and Porsches and things! It was craziness, all the money being thrown away! I can assure you these stories were isolated incidents. The vast majority of cars we had traded in were complete and utter pieces of shit. I already mentioned the woman who had a Grand Cherokee with a slipping transmission. There were plenty of others, too. Trucks with rotted frames. SUV's with knocking engines. Tired old vehicles approaching 300k miles. We did have a few people attempt to trade in cars that were worth more than the government would give them, though. In those cases we'd just give them what the car was worth and recondition it for resale on our used lot.

Pictured: Typical example of a Clunker trade

The one that really took the cake was a late 80's Dodge Ram 15-passenger van. It was wrecked in the front end and was dumping transmission fluid and coolant at an alarming rate. The customer had loaded up several gallons of both fluids in the back and limped the van to our dealership, stopping every couple miles to refill. It met the Cash for Clunkers rules, though- they just said it had to run and drive, they didn't specify how well.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this exhaustingly long article, every trade had to be junked after having its engine permanently disabled. We set up a deal with a local junkyard; whenever our back lot started to fill up they'd send a few trucks down and haul them away. The killing process was a lot less dramatic than I expected. No horrible noises, no smoke, no nothing. Our technician would pull the car into the shop, drain the oil, then drive it out to the back lot. He'd then pour a sodium silicate solution into the oil filler and run the engine at a steady 2000 RPM until it seized. When heated by the warm engine, the silicate would solidify into a glasslike mass in the bottom of the crankcase. I watched a few of the cars meet their demise. The engine would run for a couple minutes and then gradually rev down as if the tech was easing off the gas, and then shut off as if he'd turned off the key. That's all there was to it. It was very anticlimactic.

The Aftermath

Cash for Clunkers has been blamed for many difficulties in the used car market, but for the most part it didn't affect things too terribly much. Yes, it became very difficult to find a cheap used truck or SUV for the year or so after the program. But it didn't affect used cars very much because the majority of them had fuel economy ratings too high to qualify for the CARS program. What really affected used car prices during this period was the fact that we were in a recession and cheaper used vehicles were in very high demand.

And today? There's really no lingering impact. Bear in mind the cars that qualified for this program were worth $4500 or less... five and a half years ago . If the CARS program hadn't happened most of them would've been junked years ago anyway. Yet those of us in the car business still hear things like "thanks to Cash for Clunkers I can't find a decent used Honda for my teenager" on a regular basis.

For the car business things didn't wind up exactly as planned either. The program did help the American automakers a bit, but Toyota and Honda were the big winners.

After the program new car dealers suffered through what many industry analysts referred to as a "Cash for Clunkers hangover." The going theory is that the program didn't increase sales; it just pulled them forward . Many analysts agree that most of the customers who bought using the program were going to buy a new car soon anyway , as evidenced by new car sales being mind-fuckingly atrocious for half a year following the conclusion of CARS. Having just gone through bankruptcies we were pretty well used to it though, but Cash for Clunkers was a nice break from the monotony. But it's all water under the bridge. Fast forward to a few years later and we're enjoying the biggest auto sales boom in recent history, and so ends my Cash for Clunkers story.

Wacko > As Du Volant 02/27/2015 at 15:42

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I would rather drive this than a Caliber

ly2v8-Brian > As Du Volant 02/27/2015 at 15:50

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Tohru > As Du Volant 02/27/2015 at 15:51

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I worked at a salvage yard that did the decommissioning of Cash for Clunkers cars. That sodium silicate is nasty stuff.

The shortest runner was a Ford Windstar. Fifteen seconds, motor locked solid.

The longest runner was a '93 Chevy K1500 5.7L. Five minutes, and it would still spin over but wouldn't start.

The biggest shame was a '97 Wrangler with 155k miles. Since Jeep parts are in high demand though, we sold everything off of it. All that was left 3 months later was the body tub, main wiring harness, and the engine.

Tohru > As Du Volant 02/27/2015 at 15:52

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That's a perfectly good truck! What a shame.

'Wägen, EPA LOL > As Du Volant 02/27/2015 at 15:52

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When heated by the warm engine, the silicate would solidify into a glasslike mass in the bottom of the crankcase. I watched a few of the cars meet their demise. The engine would run for a couple minutes and then gradually rev down as if the tech was easing off the gas, and then shut off as if he'd turned off the key. That's all there was too it. It was very anticlimactic.

This was the saddest thing to read... Poor tired old engines just being put down like your dog at the vet. :(

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Wacko 02/27/2015 at 15:53

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That truck isn't too far from being pushed instead of driven.

Wacko > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 02/27/2015 at 15:59

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still not a dodge caliber,

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Wacko 02/27/2015 at 16:02

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Rejected ad slogans for dodge calibers - "It's so bad, I'd push a truck rather before I drive a caliber"

ly2v8-Brian > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 02/27/2015 at 16:03

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Maybe that would be true if it was something else, but this is a Chevy/GMC truck.

Wacko > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 02/27/2015 at 16:07

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I would rather drive this than a Caliber

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > ly2v8-Brian 02/27/2015 at 16:07

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Well once those old 305s get started, they run pretty much no matter what but I seem to recall older ones often get their ignition system neglected and that usually ends with the dreaded whine followed by swearing when the electric motor won't turn the engine over. I remember in my short stint as an oil changer, I had a guy drive up in his truck, left it running, and came in.......so naturally I pull it into the garage, turn the truck off and do the oil change. Oil was dark, but okay. Lower the hoist, get in, turn key aaaaaaand we ended up pushing the truck out because the guy refused to pay for even a minute of diagnostics.....and yelled at me for turning the truck off cause he's a jackass but anyways. Multiple work vans and pickups did similar things after 300k miles. Granted, they made it to 400, 500k miles but still.

Moral/tl;dr - check your damn plug wires!

ly2v8-Brian > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 02/27/2015 at 16:10

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Gotta keep up the maintenance. Do that and the likelihood of running reliably goes way up for everything.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Wacko 02/27/2015 at 16:18

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Is there a difference?

Wacko > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 02/27/2015 at 16:21

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yes there is with this one you produce the crap, and with the Caliber Dodge produces the crap.

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > 'Wägen, EPA LOL 02/27/2015 at 16:29

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I'm not the only one that saw the similarity then. That's pretty depressing.

CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) > As Du Volant 02/27/2015 at 16:36

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I agree with your stories of seeing perfectly good cars being junked. My parents junked a perfectly good 1998 Mitsubishi Montero Sport with a manual transmission with the second stick for the lo/hi/2wd/AWD. They traded it in for a Toyota Matrix with a manual. The Montero had been relavently reliable, but only so much a Mitsubishi could be. The matrix didn't come with a shift knob or carpets (the dealer guy told us they got jacked by other dealer guys) so we picked up a few weeks later. The last time I came in there, we were one of 2 customers in this massive Toyota dealership. Now the customer lot was filled with crack pipe Chevys and old GM vans. Could they really run for 100 miles independently? I doubt it. Another abused program is the 1500 non passing smog junker program. Parents junked my dads 400000 mile Tacoma. It had a cracked head and could only drive about 20 miles before refilling the coolant. In a way, it met the requirements. But did it run independently of a person? No.

RustedSprinter > As Du Volant 02/27/2015 at 17:29

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Cash for clunkers makes me sad.

Carl (@stuffcarlsays) > As Du Volant 02/27/2015 at 18:37

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I was a service manager at a tire/service shop during this fiasco. We had people coming in for stuff, just to get the doomed vehicle to the dealership to trade it in. Not that an '01 Explorer was anything to cry over, we did have one customer come in and pay full retail on a new alternator and labor, just to drive it a mile down the road to the Ford dealer after and have it meet its maker by way of Obama's Jamestown Juice.

One girl came in and had a laundry list of things that needed to be done to her Infiniti G20. When I showed her the list, she said "Nah, I'll just bring it to the dealer and go cash for clunkers with it". I explained to her what happens when a car goes in on trade for the program; she cried at the thought of her Nippon nugget dying at the hands of a lot attendant armed with a gallon of that shit, and had her vehicle serviced instead. Another jalop car lived to see at least another year on the road.

As Du Volant > Carl (@stuffcarlsays) 02/27/2015 at 18:41

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G20 wouldn't have qualified anyway. Its gas mileage rating is too high.

Carl (@stuffcarlsays) > As Du Volant 02/27/2015 at 18:45

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Very true. If I'm honest, I was just trying to get the girl's number, or at least get her to get some work done on her car. Ah, my late 20s.

XJDano > As Du Volant 02/27/2015 at 20:45

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Thanks for sharing.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > As Du Volant 03/02/2015 at 15:01

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I remember reading an incredible story about a Toyota Previa whose engine refused to die, even with the sodium silicate...

R Henry > RustedSprinter 04/13/2015 at 18:40

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Remember that next time you vote. Cast your vote for the candidate who won't meddle in your life or economics. Cash 4 Clunkers was the governmnet choosing winners and losers—grossly unfair to all involved.

LoremIpsum010101 > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 14:55

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I saw a person driving a Dodge Caliber the other day, and I thought to myself "under what bizarre set of circumstances would a human being with a functioning brain actually buy a new Dodge Caliber?" I forgot about cash for clunkers. $4,500 will change your car buying habits very easily!

su1ac0 > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 14:56

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There was 1 Mercedes Benz C43 AMG destroyed in Cash for Clunkers.

I will never forgive the human race.

Misteaks were made > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 15:09

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Seizing an opportunity our office manager reserved the first Caliber, trading in her rusted-out Ford F150.

Knowing what we all know now, we'd all be keeping that F150.

Volvosaurus-Rex > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 15:13

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This reads like an excerpt from a good business thriller non-fiction. It would actually be pretty cool to have a book written about the whole program (inception->demise), although some exciting parts would probably need to be fabricated to keep from falling asleep.

MC20 > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 15:16

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We did have a few people attempt to trade in cars that were worth more than the government would give them, though. In those cases we'd just give them what the car was worth and recondition it for resale on our used lot.

Was this legal? I saw that the list included Grand Nationals, and like you said Porches etc.

Continuing with the Grand National, why wouldn't the dealer just say:

"hey the Government will give you 4500, but we will give you 5500!" and then just resale the stuff. Even a with the dealer match you mentioned 9000 is a great price pay for a decent GN. with plenty of mark up between that and the going rate of a nice example.

MC20 > Carl (@stuffcarlsays) 04/14/2015 at 15:17

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+1 for Obama's Jamestown Juice

made me giggle

lena dunhams boobs > Carl (@stuffcarlsays) 04/14/2015 at 15:22

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You do realize Cash for Clunkers was mostly a Bush initiative right? While Obama was the president when it was voted for and signed, the actual act was developed and seeded to the House and Senate as far back as July of 2008 before Obama was even elected. In fact numerous economists had been trying to convince the government to do something like the ultimately passed act as far back as 2007 when shit was starting to hit the fan.

fredzy > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 15:22

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I recall driving around to see what kind of clunkers were being cashed in. Like you said, very few vehicles worth shedding a tear over. Maybe the occasional clean-ish older pickup.

The only stand-out was a clean looking first generation RX-7. I couldn't believe that it could meet the fuel economy criteria and/or be worth less that the $4500, let alone $3500 which it was probably eligible for. That was kinda sad.

Takuro Spirit > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 15:22

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It was more fun in the back end. As the parts manager during a VERY slow time (selling cars thanks to the program, but service and parts sales were in the tank) I was in charge of wrangling the cars and all the sodium silicate needed to kill said cars.

I personally killed over a dozen cars, and oversaw a couple dozen more. Including one of the TWO Taurus SHO's traded in under the program country-wide, a very nice Lincoln MarkVII LSC, and countless piles of complete shit.

lena dunhams boobs > MC20 04/14/2015 at 15:25

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Completely legal. As long as they didnt count it as a clunker and were just offering the dealers money instead of doing the paperwork for it for the government why wouldnt it be legal?

Ike B > CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) 04/14/2015 at 15:26

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"The Montero had been relavently reliable, but only so much a Mitsubishi could be."

So it was smoking blue less than 10 years after leaving the dealership then.

Ike B > Takuro Spirit 04/14/2015 at 15:27

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Damn shame you didn't drink any of that stuff by accident.

LHturbo > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 15:27

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At the time I worked for BMW as a tech. We got to kill a few cars when the "kill team" was bored. It was fun, they pored some sort of glass material in the oil and it did the exact same thing of slowly dying until it stops. The sad part was seeing a few good cars meet their end. A couple nice 240sx' which I know a tech just paid the customer the same price to take it before they killed it. I remember an rx7 and an old Porsche. It was sad to see.

But honestly I feel like it got a ton of unsafe cars off the road which was nice. Most of them were straight up death traps for people in them or driving around them

ezeolla > LoremIpsum010101 04/14/2015 at 15:28

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I had a friend who traded in a Sunfire for a Caliber. She does not have good taste in cars

Takuro Spirit > Ike B 04/14/2015 at 15:31

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You sound like one of the Obama haters that posted a racist comment on my many C4C YouTube videos of cars dying.

Ike B > Takuro Spirit 04/14/2015 at 15:33

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You kill nice cars and brag about it. That's how serial killers get started.

MC20 > lena dunhams boobs 04/14/2015 at 15:37

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I guess I thought if the customer stated they wanted to turn it in through the program there was no way around it. I guess it seems to me that the dealers were missing a ton of opportunities with these (good) cars just letting them go to scrap.

On the other hand I would have loved to see the shit boxes rolling in just barely running.

RaptorConner > Carl (@stuffcarlsays) 04/14/2015 at 15:37

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I think you mean Jonestown.

Like Jim Jones, the cult leader and his kool aid.

Carl (@stuffcarlsays) > lena dunhams boobs 04/14/2015 at 15:37

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Valid counterpoint.

Carl (@stuffcarlsays) > RaptorConner 04/14/2015 at 15:39

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Yes, that. Christ, I must have been drunk when I wrote that reply :P

e holder > Takuro Spirit 04/14/2015 at 15:40

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Person who disagrees with this stupid, pointless, excessively expensive and very poorly administered program = oblamer hater.

e holder > Tohru 04/14/2015 at 15:42

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The bizarre practice of purposely ruining registered, operational cars (they had to be to be eligible for the program) because they weren't new and shiny just highlights the aloofness and elitist attitude of these clowns.....

dogisbadob > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 15:45

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ooo a stoppie

dogisbadob > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 15:49

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this toolbox is worth more than the truck it's attached to

tr6rtiger > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 15:49

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It really was a cluster, I watched a spotless 2002 Grand Cherokee get killed. It only had 144,000 miles, IT HADN'T EVEN BEEN BROKEN IN!

That said, a gentleman traded in a late 80's C/K truck. Prior to trading it in he proceeded to strip everything of value (or scrap value) off of it. It showed up at a dealership basically as a cab, missing both doors, hood, bumpers, bed, seat, dash, etc. He drove it in sitting on a Home Depot bucket.

e holder > lena dunhams boobs 04/14/2015 at 15:50

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It was NOT a Bush initiative - it was obozo all the way. And a debacle, like oblamercare, but 1000x smaller.....

Eosa > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 04/14/2015 at 15:52

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You underestimate the sbc in there, that bodies not even that bad good for another 100,000

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > LoremIpsum010101 04/14/2015 at 15:59

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$9k off made them about the cheapest cars in America during that brief period of time. What was the MSRP on lower-end ones? $15k or less? We're talking a new (albeit, shitbox) car for less than a decent used car.

Tommy861 > lena dunhams boobs 04/14/2015 at 15:59

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Except that it wasn't a Bush initiative at all, and had nothing to do with the government in 2007/2008, it was submitted to the house in November 2008, while Bush was on the way out and had nothing to do with him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allow…

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 16:06

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And today? There's really no lingering impact. Bear in mind the cars that qualified for this program were worth $4500 or less... five and a half years ago . If the CARS program hadn't happened most of them would've been junked years ago anyway. Yet those of us in the car business still hear things like "thanks to Cash for Clunkers I can't find a decent used Honda for my teenager" on a regular basis.

I still blame it for permanently inflating used car prices and demand. It is now 7-8 years after the start of the recession and demand has never dropped. Getting a good cheap car after that program is extremely difficult. While they were everywhere in 2007, the stock started dwindling in 2008 due to the economy, but it was still possible. In 2007 a decent running beater could be had for $1.5k, while a very dependable (newer, lower-mileage) one that you could drive for many years rarely crested $3k. Those numbers instantly tripled in 2009 and after 5 years of slow decline we're still seeing double those numbers. If it wasn't for the huge switch in the market, I'd just buy beaters every few years for commuting instead of a new car (which should arrive any day now), so in a way, the program worked well beyond the original plan by screwing the average thrifty driver over. The truck market is insanely distorted, making cars look downright reasonable... Good for dealers, I suppose.

Tohru > e holder 04/14/2015 at 16:10

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Some of them were barely operational. I was at an auto parts store and someone bought the cheapest add-on electric fuel pump they could get so they could limp their broken-down 1980 Mercury Cougar to the dealership to C4C it. The car was more rust than sheet metal.

CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) > Ike B 04/14/2015 at 16:12

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I remember as a 4 year old the clutch of the Mitsubishi giving out while driving to Costco. I thought it was a powerful beast until a few years earlier when my dad revealed it wasn't as powerful as it was.

Takuro Spirit > Ike B 04/14/2015 at 16:15

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One was nice. ONE. Here, have a pic of it so I can brag some more before I go on my chainsaw road rage killing spree tonight after work:

CalzoneGolem > Takuro Spirit 04/14/2015 at 16:15

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I agree with Coonanner. You should have drank some of that shit. Fucks you up, man.

Tommy861 > MC20 04/14/2015 at 16:16

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There was an article that debunked a lot of those car selections. Most came down to the dealer fat fingering cars in the website. The likelihood of someone actually C4Cing a GNX (which is what it said) is slim to none.

Takuro Spirit > e holder 04/14/2015 at 16:16

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And calls the place I work at a "STEAL-ership" most likely.

Takuro Spirit > CalzoneGolem 04/14/2015 at 16:19

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I heard it's got some kick.

Ike B > Takuro Spirit 04/14/2015 at 16:25

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Don't do it

Takuro Spirit > Ike B 04/14/2015 at 16:27

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Can't help it. The voices in my head and all.

alearz06 > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 16:36

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Funny how this website regularly reports as fact that cash for clunkers ruined the used car market.

Also the cars you are talking about selling aren't that great and probably wouldn't have sold very easily without cash for clunkers. There was a lot of crap inventory that needed to be cleared out.

CobraJoe > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 16:38

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Bear in mind the cars that qualified for this program were worth $4500 or less... five and a half years ago .

$4500 was about triple my average car purchase price 5 years ago. There used to be a huge selection of decent cars for under $1000, right afterwards, you had to pay upwards of $2000 for something that actually ran.

So, no offense to you, but cash for clunkers seriously pissed me off. Sure, it got rid of a huge number of poor running and crappy vehicles, but I'd bet that a large percentage of those vehicles only needed a bit of maintenance to get them back to good running condition.

Katsumoto > Carl (@stuffcarlsays) 04/14/2015 at 16:41

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Haven't we all done the same?

Helped some pretty girl out only to try to "help" yourself later. It's what mechanically inclined males do, help pretty girls in hopes of the return.

alearz06 > Eric @ opposite-lock.com 04/14/2015 at 16:44

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It probably used cars being shipped off to Africa and Mexico that is your problem. Blame a weak dollar which makes that lucrative.

RustedSprinter > R Henry 04/14/2015 at 16:52

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Good advice man. I dont vote tho. xD

MC20 > Tommy861 04/14/2015 at 16:58

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Ahh I guess I didnt see that, thats what made me think it must have been Illegal to circumvent the Government on it. Who the hell would want only 4500 buck for one plus who at the dealership would let one go to the crusher?

Arch > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 16:58

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Those were interesting times for sure! Thanks for telling your story so well. Good read.

Bahnstorm > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 16:59

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I ran a cashforclunkerssucks.com website during all this that collected the worst videos of classics and otherwise fine automobiles dying during this program amongst other statistics of this asinine program. I had to stop and take it down because it made too many car people feel things towards inanimate objects that were hard to take, myself included. Reading this article gets me riled up again though and I am tempted to revitalize it perhaps as a warning to us in the future of what not to do.

Tommy861 > MC20 04/14/2015 at 17:05

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TBH I wouldn't be surprised if 1 or 2 "good" cars got through. About 15 years ago I owned an 87 Grand National, and I drove it to the parts counter at the local Buick dealer. The counter guys (who were not young) gave me a look like I drove a space ship in there and had no idea what a Grand National was. If the parts guys did that I can only imagine the salesmen really wouldn't have a clue.

MC20 > Tommy861 04/14/2015 at 17:14

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Excellent point. If it isn't on the lot for sale right then most people at the dealership dont know what it is.

Side note: G body power

Adscrub > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 17:14

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!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Did you get that from Futurama?

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

rabbit21787 > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 17:49

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Hey that was my dealers dumpster.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > CobraJoe 04/14/2015 at 18:29

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I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed this. It seemed like it not only took some cars off the road, but also set a new (much higher) floor in used car prices.

ffoc02 > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 19:51

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I still remember being a Ford salesman during that madness. At least half of my C4C trades were still decent vehicles at the time, but if we say your trade is $3800, and the government offered $4500, what would you do.

I still vividly remember the vicious bidding war over the last FWD 4cyl Escape. I didn't talk to the other salesman for a week.

dustynnguyendood > CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) 04/14/2015 at 20:10

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If you're referring to the California vehicle retirement, all it's required is:

Vehicle must be driven to a CAP-contracted dismantler under its own power.

engine starts readily through ordinary means without the use of starting fluids or external booster batteries.

Vehicle driveability is not affected by steering, or suspension damage.

Vehicle must drive a distance of 10 yards under its own power.

Interior pedals are operational

dustynnguyendood > LoremIpsum010101 04/14/2015 at 20:16

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When Chrysler was matching the rebate, I considered* trading in our '91 Dodge W250 that was kept on the property in the Michigan UP for dump runs. We could have got a new Patriot for about $3,000 out of pocket.

Put then I'd have to admit I owned a Patriot, so nope.

* actual consideration time - less than 10 seconds

dustynnguyendood > dogisbadob 04/14/2015 at 20:18

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That's probably the only thing holding those bedsides together.

dustynnguyendood > Eric @ opposite-lock.com 04/14/2015 at 20:19

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Yup. The only good thing that came out of CFC for us Jalops was for a while picking was pretty awesome at Pick and Pull (other than engines)

dustynnguyendood > ezeolla 04/14/2015 at 20:29

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You let her do that? Seems she doesn't have that great of taste in friends either...

*laughs, runs away*

HeeeeyJake > Tohru 04/14/2015 at 20:59

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I like how they left the toolbox in the bed. I'm not sure that would have survived at the dealership I worked at.

The Stig's graphic designer cousin > As Du Volant 04/14/2015 at 21:05

2

I was working in Automotive Advertising at the time, and it was a shit storm as well.

Everyone wanted to run a CARS ad. Manufacturers. Regional groups. Individual dealers. Everyone. So that fact alone shot our volume through the roof. Then, on top of that, not a single one of them had any idea of what they wanted in the advertisments.

So, it was a bunch of spit balling and constant revisions. And they all wanted the ads up ASAP, but since they didn't know what they wanted, the process was taking forever, and that was before all the lawyer started making their changes to how the offers and disclaimers were worded.

Finally, at the end of July, we finally started getting things approved and running. Then not even a week later came the announcement that the program was out of money.

It was another scramble to get everything pulled down.

By the time the extension was announced, everyone was just done. The clients had no energy or motivation to start the process over again, and we didn't want them to.

The following month, everyone just went back to their usual ads as if the CARS program had actually finished early. It was a colossal cluster fuck.

CalzoneGolem > As Du Volant 04/15/2015 at 06:34

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When Chrysler axed a bunch of dealerships back in May we'd purchased a truckload of vehicles from a defunct Dodge store in Virginia.

Didn't you do an article on this as well?

ezeolla > dustynnguyendood 04/15/2015 at 07:49

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I wasn't friends with her yet when she got the Sunfire and I was away at college when she got the Caliber. I wash my hands of it

Tommy861 > MC20 04/15/2015 at 08:17

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Hell yes, I owned the GN and a Regal Limited. Sadly the GN was stolen, but the Regal is still out there somewhere with like 400k on it!

As Du Volant > CalzoneGolem 04/15/2015 at 08:34

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Yep, I did. Linked at the top of this one.

CalzoneGolem > As Du Volant 04/15/2015 at 08:39

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Oh yeah, so you did! It was uh ... early in the morning ... yeah that's it.

Great articles both of them.

BurnKinjaBURN > As Du Volant 04/15/2015 at 08:44

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Kinja.... Most BiPolar comment system, Ever.

lena dunhams boobs > Tommy861 04/15/2015 at 09:17

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When things are "submitted" to the house, it means that they have been in committee for months or more at that point.

Meaning YES it was developed under Bush even if you dont like that glaring fact.

lena dunhams boobs > e holder 04/15/2015 at 09:18

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Keep telling yourself that... You obviously dont know how slowly things go through committee and how this was being worked on between Dems and Republicans before the elections even happened.

1995droptopz > As Du Volant 04/15/2015 at 09:54

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One of the advantages of the program was finding junkyard parts for my recently acquired GMC Jimmy and Chevy Blazer ZR2. The ZR2 had been subjected to a decent front collision that required a bumper, grille, and ran shroud. I was able to find all of the necessary parts for about $100 in the right color. For the 2 years I owned them, I always had a steady supply of used parts to keep them running.

Masty > As Du Volant 04/15/2015 at 10:00

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Missing out on Cash for Clunkers was the last time I took my parents' financial advice.

Tommy861 > lena dunhams boobs 04/15/2015 at 10:13

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Did you even read the article I linked? You cite July of 2008, yeah it was written by an economist from the Clinton administration in an article in the NY Times in July 2008. Try again.

evilfacelessturtle (Hooning a Ford is Domestic Abuse) > CobraJoe 07/02/2015 at 12:17

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Nope.

In 2005, about 44 million used cars were sold in the U.S. (and of course there are many millions of used cars not for sale at any given time) while you’re looking at about 700k cars destroyed. That’s 1.6% of the used car market.

CobraJoe > evilfacelessturtle (Hooning a Ford is Domestic Abuse) 07/02/2015 at 12:32

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1.6% of the Total used car market. What would the percent be if you only look at the “under $4500” (or less) price bracket that I and the significant population of economically challenged people shop in?

LJSearles > dogisbadob 07/04/2015 at 12:58

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JUST attached to.