Cash For Clunkers- I was unaware
 

A few friends of mine build Jeeps, one was at a yard earlier and filled me in on some info regarding the program. By the way, I was aware of the program, just not this part. He tells me that nearly every engine has been spray painted green and tagged, destroyed. I was a bit doubtful, so I checked YouTube. Well sure enough there's a few pages worth at least.

Incredible. When you think things couldn't possibly get dumber. This program is essentially going to force people to buy new, or newer vehicles depending whether they meet some standard. So what they are doing is putting a silica glass mix into these engines, many of them in fine running order, and intentionally ruining any vehicle (or at least it's engine) traded in on the program. I did see one video where a decent mid to late 90s Chevy Truck being was craned into a dumpster whole.

*some profanity in this one*:
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.... Four miles per gallon more, sure to fix everything!

Its insane, it really is- do the people running our countries have any idea of how stupid some of their schemes are? In the UK, people get upto £4000 off the cost of a new car if they trade in their old one. Trouble is if you buy the car on finance then you end up paying more than the normal full price because the car companies dont want to loose money on the trade in deal. That, and the price of used cars is going up as people are scrapping perfectly good cars in order to buy slightly more eco friendly new ones & get the £4k scrapage allowance, meaning fewer used cars for 1st time buyers and less well off people to buy.

Its enough to make your blood boil, it really is...

Found the dumpster one, there are many on YT-
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Neil what fate are the donor cars meeting there?

Didn't know the UK was involved in similar foolishness...

Oh yes, governent scrapage scheme is at work here too, has been for a while. Im not certain on the exact fate of the scrapped cars (the show room you buy the new car from may be responcible for collecting and scrapping the old car, or you may have to fo it yourself- Im not certain and havent looked into it that closely as I dont drive), but I believe they are just scrapped, so probably chucked on a large heap and crushed in due course, unless some jammy git scrapyeard owner resells the car or breaks it up for parts, depending on what its worth/ condition etc. It makes me sad really as its cheaper and more eco friendly to keep and older car running vs making a whole new car that only does a few mpg more- not like you're replacing a tractor with an all electric car, thats something way off in the distant future...

Neil: "not like you're replacing a tractor with an all electric car"

Well said, and exactly why I think these programs are a bit of a psychological experiment on one hand, and another excuse to just be wasteful, with or without any ulterior motives. This can't possibly help sell new American vehicles, that is pretty much an absolute.

my god that's so sad. what a waste. i know of people with 3+ cars (in a 2 car family) that trade in cars that barely run just so they can get $4500 on a new one. that's not nearly as bad as trading in cars like that last truck that was put in the dumpster. watching those videos actually turned my stomach.... what a waste.

i believe all european cars need to be built to be something like 85% recyclable, so they are used to make new cars at the end of their life rather than us americans who just toss 'em in a landfill or junkyard.

I have a few friends that work at car lots, They are waiting to get paid for them before they start blowing them up, but thats the deal, put the silica in them and run them till they pop. I was first under the impression that none of it could be salvaged, but they say at least the body parts can be parted out. It ticks me off, if taxpayers are are footing the bill, the hard working people that can't afford a new car should at least be able to fix theirs up with these parts. And redshift I work with 3 people that all traded their old ones in (an astro van, a cherokee, and a ford pickup) on new malibu's, so chevy is getting a little bit of it.

Absolutely! Now people who normally try to be frugal are going to have fewer options to fix up the old horse. Need an engine, you'll be shelling out crate rebuild dollars. This is bass ackwards, even for us. If they had like 10 more minutes to think things through they would have at least come up with a better plan than dumpsters and needless destruction. This was obviously a little footnote decision made in haste, but I need not mention any patterns concerning such things...

Good points ClodMaxx. Trading in total heaps to get a cheap(er) new car is great, that the whole idea of the scheme, but its morons who''ll trade in their perfectly fine and excellent condition pickups (see above) in order to save a few grand on a useless city car who should be shot. If you buy a 4x4 to drive around town in (Chelsea tractor, or so the expression goes- soccer moms in the US?) then thats daft to start with, its just the mentallity that bigger is better/ safer; if everyone living in a city or town drove smaller cars, then they'd still all be equally safe relatively speaking. But those ejjits with more $ than sense will then go along with the clunkers scheme and get rid of a well looked after vehicel becuase they think they're doing something posistive for the enviroment- do as the government says cos they must be right after all... :no:

The other point about being 85% recyclable is true to an extent, but thats only really newer cars less than about 10 years old or so, but if your old daily run about runs fine and is cheap to maintain, why scrap it? Brussels & the EU parliament have far too much say in what we can and cant do, and the targets that they set are often nearly impossible to meet, especially reducing emmissions by like 70% in a few decades time- that kind of change would need 99% of older being scrapped and swapped for bloody Geewizzes! God help us... anyone got a .50 cal I can borrow, got to scare a few Sprouts....

What a waste... I like death by redlining. or burnout.. or both.

pretty pathetic

Here is the worst part, the US spent 3 billion on this program to save a whopping 350 million in gas total over the life of the new cars given best case scenario.

Then what really gets to me is that these "clunkers" could have been donated to charitable organizations for people who cannot afford transportation. I am doing some volunteer work with a group that helps previously homeless people get back into the job market and I look at these people and think damn, they could have been given these vehicles instead of trashing them. The vehicles also could have been donated to High Schools, Colleges, and Universities for their auto programs as well. Really the possibilities are endless and anything would have been better than the scrapyard.

This program is by far one of the most piss poor piles of crap I have seen from the government yet. Of course everything our government has done this year to "stimulate" the economy has been piss poor at best.

What gets me is that I don't drive new cars I have a 78' Elcamino, 95" Taurus and a 01' Maxima. They are all paid for and have been for years. I can't afford a payment on a new car. Recently my Radiator split at the seam for the lower rad hose tank. I had about 5 people said "you could get 4K for that car", What difference does it make I ain't paying payments on a new car (besides both the drivers get better than the 18mpg required, near 30 on the hwy). I maintain my cars and have always. It's cheaper to fix things as they break (or before) then it is to make a payment every month. Even if I had an auto trans failure, which is the only thing I don't work on, paying $2500 to get it fixed I still come out cheaper than paying payments.

The government has no business buying cars to destroy they can't get their poop in a group on anything else, especially the way things are.

Jeff

That IS disturbing. Like what has been said, there are soo many things they could do with the "clunkers" than just destroy/crush them... I drive a '95 Bonneville with 196K on the original 3800 V6 and transmission. I get 25/20 highway/city mileage. Not to shabby for a 15+ year old car...and I'm not a "feather foot" either. I wont be trading it in until it clunks out on its own- and I don't see that happening any time soon.