Modern Vespa

What a fiasco. USA Today

The "Cash for Clunkers" idea was a clunker from the get-go. Trading in a gas-guzzling vehicle for one that gets only a slight improvment in gas mileage is not enough to warrant a taxpayer-funded credit for the old vehicle IMHO. Better to scrap the whole idea.

Things looked different 6 months ago, and it was a good idea then, but no more. Between then and now we have thrown $50 billion at Detroit, the financial system has not collapsed, and there are signs of life in the economy. My business is down too, but we have to finally draw the line at spending that is wasteful and discriminates against those of us who have a stable of old cars which are not gas-hogly.

The program hasn't really been "suspended." That phrase is pure spin. Instead it has completed its intended mission in 6 days. Its goal was to stimulate however many cars could be bought with $1 billion of our tax dollars. The 6-day success is a sure sign that it was too generous.

Apparently not:

"The problem had troubles right from the start. While customers rushed to dealers with their worst-looking vehicles, dealers were trying to navigate 135 pages of rules and lots of red tape. The program will almost certainly begin again after a break -- but it's yet to be seen if the momentum can be regained."

But it doesn't help all the car dealerships that have spent thousands of $$ on newspaper advertising and TV spots that is now for nothing. Precious little stimulation there as that is all money they are not going to get back

For the program to resume, Congress would have to spend more of our tax dollars. I'm hoping they won't.

This isn't like the TV analog to digital conversion, where the program ran out of money, and then was reauthorized with more money, because there the government mandated the conversion.

Before this thread is locked, my 2 cents, I'll keep my opinion to myself. Well, time to go ride.

I blame Calvin Coolidge.

I Bought The Lamborghini

Pics?!

oh, good, then the government payout should just cover the first month's payment..

Small problem. The program only applied to vehicles that cost $45K or below. Maybe you could have bought the front bumper and a fender or two.

Meh. Wasn't planning on locking the thread... As long as the blame stays on "The Government", and not on individual parties, I'm fine with it.

Just keep it civil...

You know I had been planing on taking advantage of this since I heard it was coming out. I have a 1999 Jeep Cherokee that gets the 18MPG the program requires. I had been planing on getting a Prius or something that got well over 30MPG since filling the 18GAL tank was horrible when gas prices went insane. It was costing me about $70 a week in gas for my car with normal driving.

Oddly enough it wasn't but a month ago when I decided I would just keep the jeep until it exploded because it drives and runs far to well for it to be destroyed by the gvot. At that same time I had the great idea of getting a two wheeler for common trips and keeping the jeep for ikea etc.

Ended up getting my vespa though so all ends well.

Second guessing is always sooooo easy.

if this program didn't cost the taxpayer a cent say the 5,000 or whatever the rebate is, equals the amount of tax both income from the people who get the car to market and sales taxes on everything involved, including insurance, registration etc.. then it is a great idea. Americas fleet would be more modern and efficient, the economy would have been stimulated and not cost the taxpayer a cent. I think they should have gone a step further and limited it to small very efficient petrol, electric and hibrids cars/scooters. It should not have included 2ltrs, V6s and 8, and lower the speed limit by 10mph on all roads except where it is already below 30mph. What a difference that would make and what a message that would send to the rest of the world. Common Mr OB I will pen you for next week and sort out the rest of Americas problems.

Free stuff....

paid for....

by me.



R

8)

And I'm hopeful that is the way this thread will go. But I do blame the government for getting into stuff like this for which it was never intended.

hopefully they will have all of the kinks worked out of this 'program running' before they take over my healthcare in october.

Saw a video clip on the news here. An older fellow berated his congresscritter about it saying, "I don't care what you say, I just don't want the government taking over Medicare!" Made for lots of laughs on this side of the ocean.

Al

FYI.... The latest figures from yesterday show that 57% of the money used for this program went to buy foreign cars, not American cars.

Due to trade agreements we can't restrict foreign cars from being in the program.

Looks like game is on again, if you want a new car and have a clunker, act quick.

Wayne B

As they should..

I would not buy GM or Chrysler. (Although I like the 4 door wrangler)
We(taxpayer) have already sunk $50B+ into these companies. And when they make a profit ( I will bet that will happen in the next 3 yrs) The government is going to say "see, it was a grand idea to bail them out etc." not mentioning that we will actually show a loss on our investment for the next millennium.
I read somewhere (maybe it was the Journal) that the capital lost between 1980-1990 at GM,Ford,Chrysler would have been enough to buy virtually all their competitors (includes Toyota, Honda, VW, Nissan etc). All they had to do was stop making cars themselves and GM would have been the owner of virtually all car companies and would have been rolling in it....

I was looking at a Honda Accord yesterday (I already own a 2008 V-6 with Navi), and they now show the % of the vehicle on the sticker as to where it was made. The Accord was 60% American, 20% Canadian, and 20% Japanese.

Btw, I saw some guy at the dealership with a "Vespa Atlanta" shirt on, and found out he posts here and rides a GT200. I can't remember his name.

The car companies that offer the most fuel efficient car will benefit most from this!!
Our Vespa store is part of a VW dealership (but we have our own building) and with this program, they are completely out of TDI jettas and Jetta Wagen (80% of the Jetta Wagen sold are TDi!!!)
Next batch won't be here for another 10 days....
They had 25 in stock and whithin a week they were out.

I want that "blue Golf" or something that gets 70 mpg. I don't understand why we can't have those cars over here.

I looked at TDI VWs for my daughter, by diesel was more than premium last year. I bought her a '97 Civic HX (43 mpg) which is my second one of those. They are hard to find unmolested by the Honda tuning crowd.

Polo Blue Motion is the one you want!

There is a new Golf coming out here this fall; the Rabbit name is being dropped to go back to the Golf name.
There will be the Golf VI, GTI VI and... GTD.. that's right!
Golf TDI with the sportiness of the GTI but with the TDi engine!!!
Can't wait!

I owned 3 Merdedes diesels back in the 80s, a 240D, a 300D, and 300SD turbodiesel. The performance was abysmal. I hope the new diesels have that sorted out. I watched the Audi run at Sebring, so something like that would be just fine.

I also want a newly designed Scirocco. AWD and a turbo would be nice too.

Go drive the new Jetta TDi with the sequential transmission.
It will blow you away how quick that car is!!
How quiet it is too!
There is even a Jetta TDI cup racing series!!!
They do 2 races on 1 tank!!!!

The Scirocco got axed for the U.S officially last month..

Will that be the 140 or 170bhp 2.0TDI engine that they are getting?

I assume the latter if it's badged GTD - they go very nicely indeed.

it will still be the 140hp engine, but with sport seats, sport suspension standard!
Even will have the new Nav (with touch screen) with back up camera as an option.

Hmm, CNN Money has a new list out today that shows that a lot of the new purchases are for trucks and SUVs.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/07/autos/cash_for_clunkers_sales/index.htm?cnn=yes

Cool. I'm sure they will sell pretty quickly.
I had a slightly older version of that engine in my Skoda Octavia (still 140bhp) and it pulled very well and still got 50mpg.

Oh yeah!!
Too bad here in the States we don't get more diesels..
What i would do for an A5 3.0TDI S-Line!!!!

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As far as I could understand it, it was for vehicles older than 1984 who would get the rebate $4500. My only vehicle is a Honda 1986 SI which made it not within the rules. Besides I ride my GTS 24/7 and can not afford a car payment and sticker shock of the registration.

Newer cars apply for it, but the biggest problem you have is that your car gets WAY more than the minimum 18mpg required for the program.
1995 to 1999 Ford Explorers were the most used for the program!
Says a lot about the #1 selling S.U.V.....

As of Aug 5, average mpg of clunker 15.8, average mpg of new car/truck 25+.

Some people need a truck, and new ones are much more efficient. The goal isn't to sell econoboxes to an unwilling public (as per George Will), it is to get better fuel efficiency and emissions.

Every dollar that goes into a program like this gets multiplied as it gets spent and re-spent, taxed and re-taxed. You get the equivalent of injecting $1.50 or more into the economy.

Great program with some teething pains. At least nobody got killed.

P.

what?? I just bought up a half dozen clunkers to trade back and then sell the new cars, the people need to demand we keep this going

What really pisses me off, is I bought a 3.0 V6 to save gas, when I bought my 97 Mini Van...if I bought the 3.3 V6, which gets less mpg, I would have got the cash for clunkers deal, but because I wanted to save gas all these years, I get punished for it...the 3.0 gets 19 mpg, and doesn't qualify, but the 3.3 does, at 18 mpg.....

How does it make sense for the government to invest $4500 in a clunker that may be worth $500 to $1,000, and then junk that car, receiving no return at all of the car's value?

How does that turn $1 into $1.50, or a 50% return?

In fact 57% of that $1 billion was injected into the Japanese and Korean economies, since the bulk of vehicles purchased were not from the Big 3.

This is also creating a large debt load on Americans who trade a paid for car for one with 60 monthly payments. What happens if those people start defaulting, like they did when Fannie Mae made easy mortgages available?

The CNN list is different from the list published yesterday, which had only a few American cars on it. Sources say that 43% of the total cars purchased were American made.

According to the list published by CNN, 25 mpg is nowhere what they are getting. The average is around 23 mpg, according to my figures.

Edmunds.com: Top Clunker Buys
The most purchased vehicles under Cash for Clunkers if 2WD and 4WD versions are included.


1 Ford Escape 17/23 combined 19 mpg

2 Ford Focus 24/34 combined 28 mpg

3 Jeep Patriot 23/29 combined 25 mpg

4 Dodge Caliber 23/31 26 combined mpg

5 Ford F-150 15/19 16 combined mpg

6 Honda Civic 25/36 29 combined mpg

7 Chevrolet Silverado 14/20 16 combined mpg

8 Chevrolet Cobalt 24/44 27 combined mpg

9 Toyota Corolla 22/30 25 combined mpg

10 Ford Fusion 18/26 21 combined mpg

While I agree that the threshold for the new vehicle was set a bit low, your statement above isn't mathematically sound:

for example, the top traded in vehicle was the ford explorer which typically gets 14mpg. The top purchased vehicle was the ford escape which typically gets 19mpg. The gain in mileage in this case is 36%
(14 x 1.35 = 19)
Lets assume we went with ineligible vehicles such as anything that gets over 18mpg like a cavalier, civic or cobalt. 29mpg is the average mpg for those vehicles. If they went to the peak of vehicles (a hybrid camry or fusion or a diesel jetta - everything but the prius/insight basically) you end up at the 34 mpg threshold. That is only an efficiency gain of 17%
(29 x 1.17 = 34)

In other words the 'slight' improvement is actually not so slight - and the govt.'s goal was to basically eliminate the lowest common denominator seeking the highest gains - which they are doing.

Ideally people would go for the guzzler straight to the top tier of diesels and hybrids, but people want their cargo hauler, not a 4 person 3 box sedan.
Or even better, it would be a straight % gain instead of setting mpg benchmarks. Meaning your new vehicle must get X% higher efficiency of the older vehicle regardless of starting point....but I digress...

Seth