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Cash for KlunkersFollow

#27 Aug 14 2009 at 12:51 PM Rating: Excellent
Edited by bsphil
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publiusvarus wrote:
How do you like the thought that you just helped pay for your neighbors car? Is he going to reciprocate?
I'm ok with it, because:

1) It's helping to improve average fuel economy for cars on the road
2) I'll get my own form of support in some other manner down the road
3) I'm a nice person and don't mind doing good things for people sometimes
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#28 Aug 14 2009 at 12:52 PM Rating: Good
The increased business is what it's all about. Sure, the car dealership doesn't actually make any more money per car, but there have been anecdotes of dealerships who went from 100% inventory to 40% inventory in one week. They literally sold 60% of the cars on their lot because of this program.

Pluses:

- People who want a new car get a pretty sweet deal with a $4000 rebate

- Car dealerships who want to clean out their 2009 inventory in preparation for the 2010 models do so without gaining anything but also without losing anything per car, and have a greatly increased volume of sales

- A little less gas is consumed, a few less pollutants go in the air.

Minuses:

- This money is coming from the taxes of people who may not even own cars.
#29 Aug 14 2009 at 12:58 PM Rating: Good
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I'm reasonably certain you could answer your own question with a reasonable amount of research Virus. Why should anyone else spoonfeed you information you can surely acquire on Google?
#30 Aug 14 2009 at 1:19 PM Rating: Good
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Ambrya wrote:
I'm reasonably certain you could answer your own question with a reasonable amount of research Virus. Why should anyone else spoonfeed you information you can surely acquire on Google?


I'm pretty sure all Varus' knowledge has been spoon fed to him.
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#31 Aug 14 2009 at 1:21 PM Rating: Good
Right wingers are allergic to Google.
#32ThiefX, Posted: Aug 14 2009 at 3:48 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) LOL, the funny thing is people are buying pick ups and cars that get the same gas mileage as the vehicle they had. Not really eco friendly is it? So in the end it's just another Government program that failed.
#33 Aug 14 2009 at 3:59 PM Rating: Excellent
catwho the Mundane wrote:
Right wingers are allergic to Google.


Maybe they can be Right Bingers?



Yeah.. I know..
#34 Aug 14 2009 at 3:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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ThiefX wrote:
Quote:
A little less gas is consumed, a few less pollutants go in the air.


LOL, the funny thing is people are buying pick ups and cars that get the same gas mileage as the vehicle they had. Not really eco friendly is it? So in the end it's just another Government program that failed.


Yes, you can do that. But look at the @#%^ing stats why don't you?

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1036/top-cash-for-clunkers-trade-ins-and-new-cars/

Quote:
"White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says the average fuel economy increase so far is 9.4 mpg; a 61% increase." Based on the first 80,000 sales, "83% of the vehicles traded in have been trucks, while 60% of the vehicles purchased under the program have been cars."


Over half of the top ten vehicles being traded in are the Ford Explorer. Guess what the number 1 and 2 vehicles being purchased are? Ford Focus and Honda Civic.

The majority of people are getting vehicles with better fuel economy. Regardless of what your blind hatred makes you wish were true, the real stats show the truth.

Edited, Aug 14th 2009 8:01pm by TirithRR
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#35 Aug 14 2009 at 4:00 PM Rating: Excellent
Quote:
LOL, the funny thing is people are buying pick ups and cars that get the same gas mileage as the vehicle they had. Not really eco friendly is it? So in the end it's just another Government program that failed.


By the criteria of the program, no, they aren't.

In order to get the rebate, the car you purchased had to get either 4 or 10 more MPG than the car you traded in.

If some car dealers are trying to swindle the government and sell cars to people that aren't meeting the criteria, then they ought to be arrested for business fraud. It's not a government program failure, it's a business failure. But I suspect that most good, honest American car dealerships - many of them Republican, as it was noted a while ago - would never think of swiving Uncle Sam, amirite?
#36 Aug 14 2009 at 4:03 PM Rating: Good
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ThiefX wrote:
people are buying pick ups and cars that get the same gas mileage as the vehicle they had


Wrong! You have to have an improvement in gas mileage in order to get the voucher.

Nice try, though!

EDIT: Thanks, Cat.

I would also like to add that this thread reads as varus desperate to find something wrong with the program as he sits in his office "working" hard, and all of a sudden - aha! - he realizes what the problem was all along!!

Except it wasn't the problem.

This isn't very becoming on such a young gentleman, varus.

Edited, Aug 14th 2009 8:05pm by CBD
#37 Aug 14 2009 at 4:05 PM Rating: Good
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I did assume that by "same mileage" he meant little improvement at all.

Plus, I have only read the portions of the rules dealing with passenger vehicles, which requires at least 4mpg upgrade, with 10mpg required for the full 4,500. I assumed the part dealing with Category I-III trucks would be slightly different rules allowing for smaller improvements because of the difference in class.
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#38 Aug 14 2009 at 4:08 PM Rating: Decent
catwho the Mundane wrote:
good, honest American car dealerships


Smiley: laugh
#39 Aug 14 2009 at 4:16 PM Rating: Decent
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Samira wrote:
It's not an environmental measure.



No. But they tacked on some environmental conditions for... um... good measure.

They could have identified "clunkers" as any car 10 or more years old. Or any car with over 120,000 miles on it. Or, if they really wanted to match the "clunker" definition, cars with significant problems, like rust, engines failing, etc. Maybe even looked at smog ratings in relation to what the car got when new. You know, things that indicate a car that is well past its prime *and* that the owner probably could use some help obtaining a replacement.


I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the methodology they chose but it's pretty obvious that in addition to putting some business into the automotive industry, they clearly wanted to improve the overall MPG of cars on the road. Setting MPG requirements for the cars themselves (18mpg or less), and basing the amount of the cash credit on the increase in mpg the new car gets is not exactly subtle...

Edited, Aug 14th 2009 5:17pm by gbaji
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#40 Aug 14 2009 at 4:58 PM Rating: Excellent
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Someone else's quote, sorry, I didn't think to save the name:
Quote:
Clearly, there is a HUGE environmental gain coming from this program. Do the conversion from MPG to Gallons per Mile (GPM), which is far more telling: GPM - The MPG Illusion

Much easier to calculate lifetime cost with that. For 100k miles:

15 MPG = 6667 gallons
18 MPG = 5556 gallons*
22 MPG = 4545 gallons*
28 MPG = 3571 gallons*

40 MPG = 2500 gallons
66 MPG = 1515 gallons
200 MPG = 500 gallons

So the environmental benefit from upgrading from 18 MPG to 22 MPG is the same as upgrading from 40 MPG to 66 MPG. Of course improvements at the low end are much cheaper, so if you want to provide an incentive for purchases, that's where they need to happen. They probably should have set the minimum higher in the 20s, but at least some of the most egregious cars will be off the road and people will likely voluntarily buy more efficient cars.

Just remember, though, that 18 MPG is the maximum that you can trade in - there are people with even less efficient cars. 15 MPG uses 6667 gallons for 100k miles - so upgrading 15 MPG to 18 MPG brings more in savings than going from 66 MPG to 200 MPG.


*The range at which the program is most tightly targeted with incentives and rules. $3k trade-in for a 4 MPG minimum saving, $4.5k trade-in for a 10 MPG minimum saving between the old and new car. So commonly a "lifetime" saving of 2000 MPG per 100k of driving. With gas at $2.50, that's a saving of $5000 in fuel costs for the 100k. The CO2 emissions for that 100k would be cut almost in half, that's a very significant saving all at once on a high emitting appliance. So if many cars are changed over because of this porogram, the entire program would probably make a perceptible difference in US emissions savings.

Lastly people tend to grossly underestimate how their own and other people's health is affected by car pollution, and how many productive working days are lost out of the economy due to the same. Cancer, hormonal problems, headaches/migraines, asthma attacks... It's an "invisible" problem. Even if many "true" clunkers don't get taken out by this program, the significant cutting of car exhaust in general by almost half from these particular drivers, will be beneficial to families' health and the economy in a way that might not be appreciated. Thus will also take a bit of pressure off your medical system, too.

Edited, Aug 14th 2009 9:16pm by Aripyanfar
#41 Aug 14 2009 at 5:01 PM Rating: Good
Varus wrote:
And thank for providing another glaring example of kind of education our taxpayers are providing.
#42 Aug 14 2009 at 5:02 PM Rating: Decent
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gbaji wrote:
Samira wrote:
It's not an environmental measure.



No. But they tacked on some environmental conditions for... um... good measure.

They could have identified "clunkers" as any car 10 or more years old. Or any car with over 120,000 miles on it. Or, if they really wanted to match the "clunker" definition, cars with significant problems, like rust, engines failing, etc. Maybe even looked at smog ratings in relation to what the car got when new. You know, things that indicate a car that is well past its prime *and* that the owner probably could use some help obtaining a replacement.


I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the methodology they chose but it's pretty obvious that in addition to putting some business into the automotive industry, they clearly wanted to improve the overall MPG of cars on the road. Setting MPG requirements for the cars themselves (18mpg or less), and basing the amount of the cash credit on the increase in mpg the new car gets is not exactly subtle...

Well, yeah. No one's trying to be subtle about the fact that we want to improve our fuel economy.
#43 Aug 14 2009 at 8:04 PM Rating: Good
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Majivo wrote:
gbaji wrote:
[quote=Samira]It's not an environmental measure.



No. But they tacked on some environmental conditions for... um... good measure.
They tacked them on because it sounded good, and you need some kind of parameters. Smiley: oyvey
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#44 Aug 15 2009 at 12:15 AM Rating: Good
gbaji wrote:
But if you splurged on a Ford Escalade...
...someone's engaging in some creative re-branding of your car.

(Escalades are Cadillacs.)
#45 Aug 15 2009 at 1:27 AM Rating: Excellent
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MDenham wrote:
gbaji wrote:
But if you splurged on a Ford Escalade...
...someone's engaging in some creative re-branding of your car.

(Escalades are Cadillacs.)


HAHAHAHHA

I was going to trade the stang off in this, and decided today to keep her Smiley: grin
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#46 Aug 16 2009 at 12:06 PM Rating: Good
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The environmental harm caused by scrapping a few million perfectly operational vehicles and using resources and energy to build new ones pretty much cancels out any benefit via gas mileage improvement. One of the rules of thumb of lowering your impact on the environment is that it's almost always better to continue using something inefficient until it breaks, rather than throwing it away and buying a new one. I'm sure someone has done the math on all that already. There may, however, be a long term sociological benefit in getting people to prefer efficient cars over their testosterone machines.

#47 Aug 16 2009 at 3:00 PM Rating: Decent
TirithRR wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Which, if your goal is to eliminate gas guzzlers, is perfectly ok as well. It's just that the two things seem at odds with each other. If you bought a good economy car 10 years ago, and it's now worn out, you likely don't qualify. But if you splurged on a Ford Escalade, it qualifies as a "clunker" now. I suppose it's just a language issue, but it still bothers me a bit. I get the objective, but we're basically rewarding people who made bad choices.


I really wish I could turn my 95 Neon in towards a new car. It is a true clunker, but it still gets 28mpg easily (I would know exactly, but the last 3 years the instrument panel hasn't been working correctly and it doesn't track miles for 75% of the time). I just have to be on the lookout for brake lines leaking (thanks, winter roads). I've had two break on me over the past 3 years. Pain in the *** to fix. And for some reason the front passenger side brake caliper has failed twice in the last two years...

Edited, Aug 14th 2009 4:51pm by TirithRR


Me too. I have a 95 Pontiac Bonneville, which at the time it was made, was a luxury car but now is a piece of ****. I did try and exchange it for the C4C program, and for your car to qualify, it has to get an avg of 18 mpg on city and highway driving. Mine got 20 according to their website. My car has issues too. It's reconstructed for one, so the current trade in value is about $200 which honestly isn't even worth taking advantage of. The dash light is out, the brake fluid container leaks and I constantly have to fill it back up every week or so (which has GOT to be bad for the environment), and the power locks don't work. I think there's some other things wrong with it too, but I can't remember what they are right now.

To sum up, having a 15 year old car sucks.
#48 Aug 16 2009 at 3:16 PM Rating: Good
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Quote:
To sum up, having a 15 year old car sucks.

I have an 18, 15, and 13 year old cars, and outside of the fact that they're older, they're all in pretty good shape. As always, routine maintenance is the most important thing, and many car owners ignore it.
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#49 Aug 16 2009 at 5:21 PM Rating: Decent
trickybeck wrote:

The environmental harm caused by scrapping a few million perfectly operational vehicles and using resources and energy to build new ones pretty much cancels out any benefit via gas mileage improvement. One of the rules of thumb of lowering your impact on the environment is that it's almost always better to continue using something inefficient until it breaks, rather than throwing it away and buying a new one. I'm sure someone has done the math on all that already. There may, however, be a long term sociological benefit in getting people to prefer efficient cars over their testosterone machines.


50% of all steel is recycled in this country. It's not like the klunkers are going straight to a junkyard or a landfill.

Edited, Aug 16th 2009 8:55pm by BrownDuck
#50 Aug 16 2009 at 8:42 PM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
To sum up, having a 15 year old car sucks.


I like it. It still runs well and I don't have to worry at all about cosmetic damage. It is the epitome of, to quote Will Smith: "ship all banged up" and I wouldn't have it any other way.
#51 Aug 16 2009 at 9:07 PM Rating: Good
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Recycling materials still takes lots of energy. Like I said, I'm sure someone has done the math on the program already, so you and I are just speculating. But what remains true is that it was done for economy stimulus, not for direct environmental benefit.


As an aside, I find it funny that some Republicans are calling it a failed program because it "ran out of money." It didn't run out of money, it distributed its money in an unexpectedly fast period of time, which is what one hopes a stimulus would do.

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