My Explorer is in really nice condition and is worth maybe $3000, so getting C4K $3500-$4500 for it isn’t really that useful to me – a $500 to $1500 difference. I’ve been ignoring price givebacks of that magnitude for years. Hell, I’d spend that much on the 70,000 mile service on a BMW wagon – no thanks.

I didn’t make any Iraq war comparisons, nor was I planning to.

Like it or not, a billion dollars, or two, or five, isn’t a lot of money – in terms of total federal spending. For the reasons pointed out, not a lot of people are going to be able to take advantage, therefore, it’s not going to cost a lot.

I thought a better line of criticism would be to ask whether the bill (either version) is just window dressing, or incompetence. If it’s window dressing, the costs are being held down (relatively) by ensuring few Americans will actually be eligible. (The article implies it’s just window dressing).

OTOH, it may be that Congress actually intends to stimulate new car sales (In a Germanic sort of way) but just can’t come up with something that will actually do the job.

Sure, the program sucks (especially for me – my old car missed the 18 mpg cut off my 2 measly mpg!) but it will have little effect and little cost. It’s political window dressing, but not the worst window dressing imaginable.

For years, the government has been subsidizing gas guzzlers by allowing for “business” to depreciate medium weight class vehicles over one year. While I would not have a problem with that if it was used to buy a bucket truck (the real intent), most of the time it went to buy an overweight SUV for the owner (or his wife) to commute in. So, if that practice is ok, I see no problem with giving breaks to encourage efficient choices. You also are still free to buy whatever you want.

That said, the way this clunker bill is being proposed is, in my opinion, flawed. Seems to me that the government should not be in the business of creating marketing programs for consumer items, unless the goal is to reduce the societal cost of the said item. With cars, the best cost/benefit ratio would come from culling cars that are gross polluters or, to a lesser extent, very poor mileage cars. Today’s older cars can run for years in atrocious condition, leaking all sorts of fluids and belching smoke. Focusing on these would have the most impact. Of course, the vast majority of people who have crappy vehicles like this are poor, so they can’t buy new anyway. But they could use a voucher to buy another, cleaner, safer used car. But that won’t stimulate sales of new cars, so it will never happen.

It’s a crazy world where a billion dollars is considered pocket change. And PLEASE. No Iraq War comparisons.

How’s it wasteful if few buyers can make use of it? As legislation it may be a waste of time, but it doesn’t seem that it’s going to cost the taxpayers a lot of money.

If they had been at the right point in the cycle, my sister and brother in law might well have taken advantage of this cash for clunkers. But I don’t think either the Cherokee, the Durango, or the XC90 are old enough. (They did not ask MY advice when they bought those trucks.)

Seriously, here’s a question for you guys in the biz. Old Explorers, Durangos and Blazers are most commonly mentioned as target clunkers. So nowadays, what’s, say, a 1996 Explorer in typical condition and typical mileage typically worth at wholesale? A good bit less than $4,500 I suppose.

Generally speaking, a normal vehicle made today puts out 15% of its pollution in the material mining phase, 5% in production, 80% in use, and less than 1% in scrappage. This varies, obviously, from vehicle to vehicle and depends on what kind of pollution is in question, but that’s the general percentages.

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You are right, if that new car doesn’t cost money.

But since that’s not the case, you are wrong.

What you are counting is “emission of certain pollutants”. But that is different from “pollution” itself. You didn’t take into consideration the equivalent pollution of the purchase price itself.

A new car typically costs $20k. And we all know $$$=environment.

If everyone has $20k to spare, we can convert all coal burning generators to wind powered generators. That, would cut pollutions much more efficiently.

There’s always claims going both ways on this old question.

Generally speaking, a normal vehicle made today puts out 15% of its pollution in the material mining phase, 5% in production, 80% in use, and less than 1% in scrappage. This varies, obviously, from vehicle to vehicle and depends on what kind of pollution is in question, but that’s the general percentages.

The idea is that you’re a consumer that likes to purchase new cars and then keep them for 10 years. After 10 years it’s safe to say that you’re $20k car is probably worth less than the $4500 the clunkers bill would give you. Money’s tight, so maybe you think you’ll just try and hold onto that car for another year or two. I mean, why would you want to trade in your running car and get $1 to $2k for it on trade in? Now you can trade it in for $4.5k off of that new car you wanted.

Let’s just look at a real life example of a non-poor person this bill would have helped, my dad. He bought a brand new 1997 Dodge Ram. Fast forward to 2006, gas is $3 per gallon and he has a 50 mile commute everyday. (wasn’t always a 50 mile commute but changed into one in 2005) It’s a dodge so it’s been dripping oil and dropping grease everywhere for the past year or two. Time to get a new car or truck. He ended up getting a Prius, and I think he only got something like $1.5k for trading in his truck. With this bill he would have gotten $4.5k for his truck, right?

If I remember right, the economy was doing a lot better in 2006 than it is now in 2009. So other people facing the “Keep the old car and repair it or buy a new car” delima are probably thinking about just keeping the old car since they won’t get much for it on a trade in.

It still gets around 30 mpg.

I can’t see trading it in and making payments again.

For example I have a 1995 GM car with a V6 as a weekend car. Under the current bill this would not qualify as a clunker because it gets 20mpg. As anyone knows a 1995 GM car is most certainly a clunker.

And I am getting anxious for a new Japanese model.

Saw many potentially qualifying vehicles driven by Mexicans here in North Texas. If the stereotype is correct, many of these vehicles will not qualify due to the insured in the prior year requirement.

Just another example of government meddling (or the announced intention to do so) harming the private sector.

Yes, the market for new vehicles is in the toilet. Could it be because the market is saturated? Why not let the market recover by letting some of the older vehicles fall to attrition.

Oh, because certain automakers and dependent industries will fail in the mean time? And with this Cash4Clunkers program, they won’t?

It’s a drop in the bucket that’s going to cost us, as a society, a lot more than we’re going to gain.

When this economy rights itself, it’ll be because it dumped the excess capacity, the inefficiency, and the obsolete. Propping those elements up only delay the recovery and cause more harm.

One scenario I can envision is where the car makers offer short term leases on entry level cars…maybe 18 – 36 months. With a $4500 down payment, the lease payment could be in the $0 to $100 dollar range.

And the argument that it reduces pollution doesn’t hold water, when all things are factored in creating a new vehicle is much more pollutant than running an old one.

Of course, actually testing each clunker might prove expensive.

The vehicles likely to get scrapped under the proposed bill are the hordes of Explorers, Cherokees, Blazer and such which sold oh so well in the 1990s. Ten year old Silverados and F150s are likely candidates as well. These thing have a market value of almost nothing now, sold by the millions and yield a bunch of scrap metal when crushed.

Problem is, I think the number of people in this situation is pretty small.