Cash 4 Clunkers List - Some Amazing Cars Destroyed!

[Tony D]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh...MUST... AVOID... POLITICAL... RANT!

 

 

Megadittos....

[strotter]

OK, this sounded like it might have a teeny political spin to it, so I checked the cars.gov site. There's a "Report" section, where a variety of different data is available, including a list of all cars taken for trade-in. The list is up-to-date at Friday, October 16, 2009 at 3:00PM EDT. Note that the list is a .zip'd .xls file. A quick perusal disclosed there are 677081 cars listed, of 8102 "types" (make/model). Turns out the story has been "massaged" a bit...

 

There is a DB7 (it's a '97)

 

There is a Typhoon

 

(6) Porsche 928 including (2) S4 >>> 11 Porsches, including 5 928's, 2 S4's , but all 928's are crap <<<

 

(4) Gen. IV Supras >>> 18 "Celica Supra", 300 Supra's, w/ 4 listed as "Category 1 Truck" (?) <<<

 

(5,000+) Mercedes-Benz including (142) SL, (3) S600, a 1994 E500 (crying), a 1992 500E (more crying), 1995 C36 and 1999 C43 >>> Didn't check, unimpressed with MB's <<<

 

(3,500+) BMWs including an M3, M5, Z3, 850i and (3) 740il >>> CORRECT, but 2 740il's <<<

 

GMC Typhoon >>> 1 <<<

 

Buick Grand National >>> NONE <<<

 

Aston Martin DB7 >>> NONE <<<

 

Bentley Continental R >>> NONE <<<

 

If you download the file, be sure to resort the sheet, as it's initially sorted by "Trade_in_Vehicle_Category", such as "Light Pickup", "Passenger Car", and the vehicles are often not in the correct category (seems for instance to be a lot of BMW pickups I didn't know about). Looking through the list, seems like it's mostly clunkers. Huh.

 

Interesting thing about the program, the dealers had the option of buying the cars outright. Why would a dealer pass up a DB7? Doesn't seem to make sense. I'll check into that more...

[amorfin]

Interesting thing about the program, the dealers had the option of buying the cars outright. Why would a dealer pass up a DB7? Doesn't seem to make sense. I'll check into that more...

 

 

Expensive/Exotic cars that are thrashed (machanically and cosmetically) can get to the point where fixing them is more than what it will be worth once fixed.

 

The C4C deal guaranteed a positive $3,500/$4,500.

[MAG58]

Why did the dealer pass up good 500e's though? Most of them have been babied...

[amorfin]

New car dealers usually don't care about and don't want to mess with older high mileage cars. They don't see any value on them and wholesale them all to small car lots or send them to auctions.

[chrism]

I'm not sure all your facts are correct.

Who told you it cost 20k to write a check for $4,500.00?

The dealer probably made more net per car, given the out of pocket was less, and easier to swallow than the normal deal......the BUYER WAS MOTIVATED!, new cars were in short supply (toyota). Not to mention all the back door, volume rebates to the dealer you don't hear about. Ever hear the term "CASH IN THE TRUNK"

 

The paper work cost was not a major factor. The salesmen stayed late to reap the benefits of the increased sales volume. I didn't hear ONE complaint when they got their paychecks.

At some point there was a bottle neck in dealer payments......I never heard a negative word at my dealer. We sold OVER 900 cars in 1 month. I'm told this is a nation wide record.

I'm not seeing the BIG JOKE?????

 

From the dealer and customer end the numbers look good. Now add the administrative cost from the various government agencies and you get $20k per car. I was low in the estimate. Read this article.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/28/autos/clunkers_analysis/index.htm

[amorfin]

It's $24,000 per car if you only count the 125,000 cars that they think were added by the program, not the 690,000 that were actually bought through the program. If you count the 690,000 it is $4,348 average per car.

 

I never agree with articles changing numbers in that way just to create a big shock on the reader. Many readers get the wrong information like that.

[webster280z]

Buick Grand National >>> NONE <<<

There might not have been a Grand National, but there is a '87 GNX on that list. The 1987 GNX was actually produced by ASC McLaren, If you look there is an entry under ASC incorporated with trade-in year of 1987 but the model is unlisted; but it must have been a GNX

[chrism]

Amorfin,

You make a good point, but I have heard and read the same view from other news sources as the one in the link.

I was also wondering how the dealers recouped the cost of crushing some of the more expensive trade ins.

Not sure how that works.

[amorfin]

If they gave the average of 4300 there would not be any news, because everyone knows that (Somewhere between 3500-4500). So they have to find a way to make the news and get the attention.

 

The dealers could actually sell the cars for their scrap value, and anything over certain amount had to be given back to the customer. It was a real mess. So the dealer where I was at appraised everything at $1 and donated all the money over that to some charity. That made it easy.

[Comrade_Charlie]

In my local pull a part they have started to bring over the c4c cars, Sad time for the car world, there is now 2 unusable 1uz's sitting in ls400s in the junkyard now, paperweights I suppose.

 

But they have a holding area for the c4c cars they havnt brought in yet, and I cant count the number of nice looking trucks in there. Honestly I think they should have destroyed the body instead of the engine/trans, A engine/trans can be removed, a body, not so much and the title is ruined. Cut the A pillars or something, would have probably been cheaper too, just some blades instead of that crap to pour into the engine.

[padam07]

^ i think the one of the points was to get rid of a lot of ineficient vehicles off the road, so getting rid of the engine is the most important part. Not the body.