Cash for Clunkers - Buy a Clunker, Trade it In?

I agree - we don't want to walk in the shoes of many politicians who write the laws....

But we can bet our booties there is a large group of scammers out there taking advantage in some way. Hey, it's only our, our kids, our grandkids, etc etc future tax dollars at work.

And have a feeling that dealers / Finance people did not give the best "discounts" to buyers as their eye was on the Clunker $$ prize. No reprisals from you good Toyota dealer folks now. I bought my Prius in June at MSRP and was, and still pleased. Reasonable profit is OK. ^_^

And you can bet that quite a few of these new car deals will go into repossession as the clunker-owners will not be able to afford the payments. We will bail them out as well as the automakers and finance companies.
Guess I'm in a bad mood this morning - no smilies apply here. Time to get a cup of coffee and sit in my non-clunker paid-off Prius.

 

The vehicle has to be in driving condition. I made the deal on Saturday, scheduled to take delivery when the new $ passed which ended up being the next Saturday. My '95 Jeep died that following Monday. It turned out to be the (original!) fuel pump. So in order to take delivery, I had to repair the fuel pump at a cost of $537, just to take it in for them to crush. Talk about getting caught in the letter of the law - I've been driving it for 14 years and because they wouldn't take it on Saturday...*sigh* not complaining because I still got nearly $4K off a vehicle I wouldn't have otherwise purchased, but still, it felt like tossing it in the trash :-(

To the point about crushing new hummers, one of the local scrappers said it made him sick to disable the 2005 vehicles he was getting in. Seriously?!?! Wouldn't those have been worth more than $4500 for sale/trade-in??? A quick internet search shows that a 2005 Jeep GC is going for $8-14K So I would hope that the newer vehicles aren't being scrapped in droves.

From what I hear, I feel like one of the few that did the spirit of this bill. Took my generally well running (i.e. I was not planning on trading it in until something major went wrong) 95 Jeep with 337K miles, which was getting 19-20 mpg, off the road for a 2010 Prius. Went from gov't rating of 15 -> 50 MPG. If I beat the Prius estimate by the same percentage as I beat the Jeep's, I will be one very happy camper! :rockon:

I certainly agree that they could have done much better with the req'ts. While 2-5 miles is a good percentage increase for something getting 18, 20-23 mpg stick stinks! And the old hand-me-down tradition sure is taking a beating. My nephew was eyeing the Jeep for when I finally gave up the ghost

P.S. I've been putting a small 'car payment' in the bank since I paid off my Jeep many years ago. I've taken some money out to pay for repairs to the Jeep, but I was able to pay off quite a bit of the Prius so I don't expect it to be reposessed for non-payment. I hope to continue this so when I get my, hmmmm, 2025 Prius flying pod, it will be fully paid for on day 1

 

I'm not sure if that is possible. I have been told that you must be able to prove uninterrupted ownership for at least 12 months.

 

Since you have to prove ownership for the past calendar year and consistent insurance for the same year, same car... and provide a title for the car... you'd need to have started this a year ago, McFly.

 

Sorry in advance couldn't find this elsewhere. Not a CFC question per say but more of a tax question. Here in CT they had tax rebates etc for buying hybrids. The lanquage of the bill is a bit confusing because it looks like they extended it through 2010 but it doesn't include the 2010 Prius. Anybody know the definitive answer? I also tried the search feature for locating a decent CT dealership with no luck.

 

The tax credits that you are probably referencing were federal tax credits which were eliminated for each individual qualifying model once a certain threshold of sales was hit. The Prius hit that mark years ago. CT does waive its 6% sales tax, however, on cars that hit 40 mpg hwy or city, so the 2010 Prius qualifies for that easily!

 

I would love to see people buying a bunch of clunkers, and then end up getting stuck with it because they tried to make a few quick buck