I intend to lie on the form saying I owned the car for a year. Odds are it won’t be checked.

I’ll buy my Jetta Diesel new, then pocket the $4,500 and sell the car for near what I paid for it a few months later.

This operation will not reimburse me for the decades of government ripping me off with the Social Security Ponzi scheme, but it’s a start.

So, relax. It’s covered. Move along folks. There’s nothing more to see…

Unless you gringos have much much better tech than us on that.

This is in reference to the 10K$ Suburban. You must at least swap the chassis to change the VIN, and many many other places.

Down here in Venezuela, you can’t import a used car unless you prove ownership for at least 1 year in the country of origin.

250K cars means there’s a LOT of money in play. I’m sure scams will abound.

They can simply create one from information that is already available.

“Will dealers really risk the legalities of all of this?”

Many of them are already slated to shut their doors. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if a few of them decided to pursue this path. When an ambitious person sees their way of living being eliminated by a government subsidized company, they can get rather nasty about it.

As far as the junk or salvage business, they won’t be able to realize any benefit unless the dealerships do, as that’s where the clunkers will come from.

I think the fact that many dealers aren’t even aware of how this legislation works yet, days before it goes into effect, speaks volumes about what a clunker of a bill this legislation will be.

Here’s a good layman’s explanation of the hoops and requirements under the CARS Legislation by U.S. News: http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/your-money/2009/07/02/making-sense-of-cash-for-clunkers.html

Vehicles for this program can already be bought dirt cheap at the impound sales along with the in-op auctions. In fact, the certified letters that are sent for these vehicles get returned if the individual no longer resides at the address and does not provide forwarding information.

The dealer can arrange for the sale of the vehicle and conveniently get it back 6 to 7 months later as a trade-in. It can then be sold as a low mileage CPO car.

This really isn’t hard to pull off. A driver’s license number can be simply filled out by a clerk at the DMV office with the dealer simply saying, “We forgot.” That actually happens quite a bit in the paperwork side. Other than that, I don’t see any possibility of a red flag. Unless…

The auditor hunts down the person on the paperwork.

That can be done. But the question is WILL it be done.

Given that, I’ll start with the biggest impediment the author glosses over – anyone who is trading in a ‘qualifying vehicle’ must have been the owner, continually, for one year, with the vehicle being registered in their name for that period of uninterrupted time.

That portion of the legislation is probably the clearest, in what is a poorly written bill.

What are you going to do to bypass this?…Steal someone’s ID based upon the VIN tricks spoken of, and go to the dealer and try and buy a new car in that person’s name?

Good luck with the registration and insurance process on that new car purchase.

Good luck with all of that.

By the way, the purchaser of a new car under this legislation can’t sell it or transfer the title for 6 months after purchase.

Also, if you do transfer the title to the new car after 6 months, sales tax will be due by the 2nd ‘purchaser’ on that transaction.

The greater scandal is why this bonehead program ever became law in the first place. Other then possible charlatans, see above, the other beneficiaries of this law will be a narrow group of people who, 1) have older serviceable SUVS/trucks that are worth less then $4500 and thus worth trading in under the program, and 2) can afford to buy a new car. Most people who drive crappy old gas guzzling SUVs do so because they cannot afford new cars. The potential honest participants will therefore be people who tend to have money but nonetheless hold on to their vehicles for a long time, often as a backup or work/hobby vehicle. Be on the lookout for wealthy farmers to turn in their old pick-ups. But hey, they already get enormous subsidies so what is a few billion more?

Finally, crushing serviceable vehicles and giving people money to buy new cars is by no means a “green” policy. It takes a large amount of energy to manufacture any vehicle – even a small car. When we hear about carbon footprints this is rarely discussed. Cash for Clunkers is not about energy conservation, it is all about Congress and Obama feeding the pigs in Detroit.

Keep in mind that the government is now going to deploy spot checkers. It’s better than no regulation at all. But the fact is most of these ‘clunkers’ won’t be audited as it stands at the moment.

My position is that if the goal is to remove these vehicles from the road, that should be the end goal. You can take specific measures that would virtually ensure the vehicles would end up scrapped versus resold and recycled.

When I moved to Europe I left the wagon with another GI. Once back stateside, a couple of years later, my buddy told me he’d “sold” it to another GI for 50. Thinking back, I wonder how many “clunkers” are like the one I “owned.” No insurance, no title, no nothing except cheap run it until it dies or you move out transportation. And I wonder how many people with true “clunkers” are even motivated or able to trade up to a new car. Probably not many, I’d guess.

Skirting the law just to save a fraction of the purchase price doesn’t seem worth it.

So a dude buys a $250 clunker to get $4500 from the government because the rules were loose, oh well, shame on us for voting those dopes into office – at least it’s one less car sitting in someone’s front yard on blocks.

The back end trouble I see is if it doesn’t get crushed. That thing could get “recycled” several times btw 3 businesses working together.

Once the regulations are issued, we’ll know for sure how the insurance requirement will be applied.

The vehicle has to be insured and registered to the same owner for a full year prior to trade in.
This info comes straight from the CFC website.

Yes, no?

Twotone