BOHICA, Cash for clunkers - 2!

Purely conjecture at this point.  Writers are among those who currently have too much time on their hands.

I am all for government buybacks of everything with LED headlights.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

or coal rolling.

I saw that too. Interesting idea, but... hopefully not for real. 

In reply to Greg Smith (Forum Supporter) :

Highly doubt it.  C4C was an environmental push as much as it was a way to get the ailing auto industry kick started.  Those are not factors now.

Certain car guys like to blame c4c for all sorts of maladies in the used car market but it was a drop in the bucket. It didn't affect our hobby at all. 

This time the auto factories are idled at the same time as the dealerships. There may well be a massive glut of cars coming, but it's not like it would have been had they been churning out cars for the last month. 

RichardSIA said:

 It didn't affect our hobby at all.

Saw a list of the trashed cars a few years ago.

In addition to Corvettes I recall a TVR and Lotus none of us will now ever have a chance to own.

The program was over a decade ago now, and it was just 300k cars out of about 12M that are annually permanently taken off the road.  So it would be surprising that the list was accurate, and it was nothing.  Really, if a Vette, TVR, and Lotus were turned in to trash, then they were likely trashed.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

This time the auto factories are idled at the same time as the dealerships. There may well be a massive glut of cars coming, but it's not like it would have been had they been churning out cars for the last month. 

Car sales are not zero, though.  Last I saw, it was about 50% down for most, and not so bad for some.  Fleet sales are zero.

At least the data I saw a week ago telling us that we are not as bad as most would think (for a corporate meeting).

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

Agreed. Everyone's gotta blame someone or something. Usually easier to blame the government boogeyman. 

RichardSIA said:

 It didn't affect our hobby at all.

Saw a list of the trashed cars a few years ago.

In addition to Corvettes I recall a TVR and Lotus none of us will now ever have a chance to own.

If they were so trashed that the owner was willing to take $3500 in trade for it, how much of a loss was it?

RichardSIA said:

 

Those who remember how this went last time know that it is structured to prevent any parts becoming available.

 

What ?

Junkyards here were full of C4C cars and parts were there for the picking. All of the engines' bottom ends were ruined with that oil slurry stuff they used. But the rest of the cars, game on. I work with a guy who would get off work in the mornings and scour the junkyards, pulling all of the cylinder heads off the V8 Explorers he could find. He made mad cash selling those factory hotrod heads to the Ford hot rod guys on the List of Craig.

C4C would have affected areas differently. All I can say is that I've bought sub $3000 cars my whole life, and C4C was probably the worst market I've seen so far. Gas was up and large cars and SUVs that would normally cost pennies under the circumstances, were thin on the ground and not discounted at all. Economical cars were priced higher than usual. Some people, likely a minority, traded cars worth more than $3500 because it was hassle free.

RichardSIA said:

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

Yes, some did not follow the rules, pretty sure they were the exception.

As to $3,500 value meaning the cars were trashed, adjust that for inflation. Cars were required to be running and registered to qualify.

I used to buy a lot of pretty good running TR's, Sprites, and even Alfa's for less than $500.00 each.

Today similar condition cars are well over $2K at the least. 

Not saying this IS a disaster, just a heads-up to what could be coming.

There are factions that would like to see this as just a starting point on an ICE ban.

The ENGINES were not allowed to be resold.  The rest of the vehicle was expressly allowed to be salvaged for parts.  That is why they poured water glass (basically, coolant stop-leak) into the engine's crankcase, to render the engines inoperable and unable to be rebuilt,  If the goal was to prevent any part of the vehicle from every being re-used, it would have been just as easy to send mobile car shredders to the dealerships.

I do not think TR-anythings or Sprites or Alfa-anythings qualified for C4C, since one of the primary qualifiers was the vehicle had to have a CAFE rating below a certain level.  You can't blame C4C for cars going up in value over time, you can blame entropy and attrition.

RichardSIA said:

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

Yes, some did not follow the rules, pretty sure they were the exception.

As to $3,500 value meaning the cars were trashed, adjust that for inflation. Cars were required to be running and registered to qualify.

I used to buy a lot of pretty good running TR's, Sprites, and even Alfa's for less than $500.00 each.

Today similar condition cars are well over $2K at the least. 

Not saying this IS a disaster, just a heads-up to what could be coming.

There are factions that would like to see this as just a starting point on an ICE ban.

How in the world did C4C change the value of those cars?  As opposed to fewer and fewer of them surviving....  A $500 Alfa probably has not survived- I know for sure of a $250 Alfa that was scrapped, since I did it.  Close to 20 years ago. 

Not sure how people make all of these grand conclusions over 350k cars in a short amount of time in 2009.  That number was insignificant over one year, let alone a decade.  Especially when most of those were POS SUVs.

But, hey, if you want to keep going down that path, go for it.  

I worked at a Nissan dealer during C4C, and probably 90% of the cars deserved to/needed to go to the junk heap.  That other 10%, though, it was sad to destroy.  I can't speak to how it affected the whole market, I haven't studied up on that, but I don't think it had the overall affect that the government was going for.  Although a bunch more people probably took out car loans that they couldn't afford and ended up depending on the government for things, so maybe it worked out exactly as they wanted it to. 

The Canadian version of cash for clunkers was the worst thing that has ever happened to my business.  berkeley the big dealers, berkeley Ford, I fix older cars.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

I rather liked it.  I hate working on old E36 M3 that is a pain in the ass to work on due to rust and general poor design, hard to find parts for because over ten years old, and generally owned by people who wouldn't spend a dime unless they knew they were getting nine cents back in change.

Know what I call scrapping all the first generation Explorers?  A good start!