Cash for Clunkers Tapped Out?
Published: July 30th, 2009
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Well that was quick. The Freep is reporting that CARS will be suspended after only 4 days due to over-subscription. NADA is warning the Wall Street Journal that demand is quickly exceeding the $1 billion available. An unofficial NADA survey shows 25k qualifying deals that the NHTSA still has yet to process. And dealers sound pissed. “Their capacity to accept the applications is not adequate,” one dealer tells the Freep. “Dealers are spending all day trying to submit the applications . . . I have not spoken to one dealer that has received approval, and or has been funded, for even a single transaction.”
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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dwford - I hadn't heard that part, but I'm not surprised based on the amount of cursing and storming about I've seen based on the C4C paperwork requirements. The insurance documents seem to be the easiest to get ahold of, all of the companies we have had to call for proof of one year continuous coverage have been very willing to help. However, lots of people don't have copies of their registrations, or have lost their titles, and depending on the state replacing a lost title can take anything from a simple visit to the DMV/Tax Collector to filling out tons of forms and waiting a month or more. Also, there are customers who still owe balances on their clunkers, so then you have to add banks getting titles to dealers and whose paying for what before the deal is even approved into the mix. WildBill and Kaleun - Believe me, dealers are the last ones that ever want to have to unwind deals. Yes, people will be extremely pissed if this happens, and they will more than likely be pissed at the dealer, even though the dealer did everything right according to the government's slow trickle then sudden flood of somewhat conflicting information. As far as pulling cars back, yes, it can become a PiTA because a car from an unwound deal is still a new car (as it was never titled) but it can have a couple weeks worth of wear and tear on it, plus several hundred miles, which the next customer in line will ask about, and expect to be compensated for, so, obviously, dealers are going to do everything in their power not to have to do that. The thing that confuses me most about this is that from what I understand, a number of European countries ran cash for clunkers programs fairly sucessfully before the US version started up. Did no one bother to make a call across the pond and ask them how they worked out the logistics?
I guess the European programs didn't have that much pork in it and were simple. Older than 9 years --> rebate or so. And the EPA changing their MPG numbers in the middle of the game didn't help either (of course, they had to revise their numbers right now) I also assume sales people were promising the moon to potential costumers just to show up. All advertisement I've seen only displayed the $ 4,500 and maybe some fine print showed possible limitations.
Wasn't it Winston Churchill who said "you can count on the United States to do the right thing, after they've exhausted all other possibilities." Something tells me a vote-whore will come up with another possibility in the not too distant future.