Surprise! Surprise!Surprise! Where did all the clunkers go?

[Redhand]

I stopped by one of our junkyards today to try and find a replacement seat cover for my wifes Gas guzzling Jeep Cherokee( Ah! but its been so dependable). Anyway the lot was full of American made clunkers that were in great shape minus the engines. I ask if I could purchase one of the vehicles and swap my engine into it and have a great vehicle with less miles on it. They said they could not sell anything off them yet and that when they could only 3 parts at a time were saleable. They said you could not buy the whole vehicle and replace the engine. Anyway it got my BP up and kick started my brain cells. Why can't I buy one of those vehicles? Afterall my tax dollars paid for them. Why did car dealers and junk dealers have exclusive rights to buy those vehicles? The junk dealers got the vehicles for pennies on the dollar, and the clunkers that bought into that whole $4500. cash got ripped a new one. The dealers may make out like fatcats because their discounts are only on paper and if they are lucky they will get a kickback from Uncle Fud and the Union bosses. I would have gladly paid $4500. cash for most of the vehicles I saw. Then the clunker that traded it in could have had some real cash in their jeans to negotiate a real deal. The whole thing stinks, those 700,000 trades-ins will be junked period, making very few replacement parts available for those models still on the road,thereby getting others waisted. They were exclusivly AMERICAN made automobiles and they were traded in for almost exclusivly Foreign made vehicles. Who is the loser here? The AMERICAN tax payer. Thanks but no thanks I'll keep my gas guzzling AMERICAN icon and its Indian logo un til the foreign made tires bite the dust. End of my rant before I kill off more brain cells and get dumbed down even lower than they would like me to be.:mad::mad::eek::confused::mad::mad:

[Mr. Nameless]

I think you may have made some brain cells on that one.

[rentalguy1]

The clunkers went to the junk yards and the money went to Japan. Who says Osama can't cure the economy? What? What's that? Oh...he is supposed to be working on OUR economy.....

[ampaterry]

There was no requirement regarding the country of origin of either the clunker traded in, nor of the vehicle bought.
The car you traded IN had to get 18 MPG or less.
The car you BOUGHT had to get 22 mpg or better.
If your mileage improved by 4 mpg or more, you got $3500.
If your mileage improved by 10 mpg or more, you got $4500.


And the clunkers in the junkyard are missing more than the engine; the entire drive train was forbidden to be re-sold by the salvage yard. They had to sell off the parts and crush the rest within six months of aquiring the vehicle.

If anyone had a vehicle worth more than $4500, why on earth would they utilize this program?

Of the big three, Ford held its own under this program.
IMHO, this was due to Ford NOT taking any bailout money. A LOT of people gave them credit for that.

[ampaterry]

The clunkers went to the junk yards and the money went to Japan. Who says Osama can't cure the economy? What? What's that? Oh...he is supposed to be working on OUR economy.....

None of my money went to Japan.
I bought a Nissan, made here in TN by Nissan America, Inc., traded on the NYSE like any other American company.

[Hardballer]

None of my money went to Japan.
I bought a Nissan, made here in TN by Nissan America, Inc., traded on the NYSE like any other American company.

What ever floats your boat.

[ampaterry]

Believe me, I wrestled with Nissan because it was ORIGINALLY a Japanese company, and my Father-In-Law, who I respect greatly, was a guest of the Japanese throughout most of WWII. Before I bought one, I talked to him at length. When he found out it was made in the US by US workers, and the company was now a US company, he said he had no problem with it.
STILL a bit nervous about them, I bought the cheapest 1982 Sentra on the lot so I would not get burned too badly. It ran flawlessly, and at 96000 miles I decided I could trust them and traded it for a 1989 240 SX that was a GREAT little car. Hot, economical, and no problems. I drove it for a quarter of a million miles and NEVER opened the engine; NOTHING but routine tune-ups and oil changes, and ONE brake job. I just got too old for that low a vehicle as I developed difficulty getting out of it, and traded it in when it was still running perfectly.

[petesusn]

My Ford Focus is probably only about 10% American. It was even assembled in Mexico. My Ford an American car? I don't think so.

[ampaterry]

My Ford Focus is probably only about 10% American. It was even assembled in Mexico. My Ford an American car? I don't think so.

Oh, man, don't even get me STARTED on that!

My 1968 Olds 442 was built in Canada.
When we wanted a Motorcycle, we found that more of the Honda GL1500 was made in the USA than the Harley was!!
VERY irritating, as I firmly support AMERICAN workers whenever possible.

[JohnBrainard]

None of my money went to Japan.
I bought a Nissan, made here in TN by Nissan America, Inc., traded on the NYSE like any other American company.

Same with my Tacoma.

I had a GMC Sonoma before I bought my Tacoma..... Never again. That truck was in the shop more at 60k miles than my Sentra at 140k miles and I put at least three times as many miles on my Sentra.

[pinecone70]

I need to trade one of my vehicles and I don't even know what to replace it with. Grr.

[Suicide*Ride]

And the clunkers in the junkyard are missing more than the engine; the entire drive train was forbidden to be re-sold by the salvage yard. They had to sell off the parts and crush the rest within six months of aquiring the vehicle.



A good question is: how does a person know if the drivetrain parts he's buying @ the boneyard didn't originate from a clunker? IIRC, the only requirement of the dealer to disable the vehicle was to clunker-bomb (destroy) the engine.

The drivetrain as a whole (transmission, front-end, rear-end, transfer case, disc brakes) can be more costly to replace than an engine, especially if the vehicle is a 4x4 or AWD.

I store a travel trailer @ a tiny little lot, & there are several 4x4 "clunkers" sitting in the back where nobody can see them.... I wonder what their story is. :rolleyes:

SR

[ampaterry]

Yeah, the dealer had to drain out the engine oil and pour Sodium Silicate Solution into the crankcase, then run the engine until it ceased.

But the paperwork on this program was PHENOMENAL!
I have no doubt that there are CLOSE tabs being kept on these vehicles AND their components until the remains are crushed in six months.

I see a LOT of flat-beds driving around here with clunkers on them, and they are marked clearly 'CFC - NOT for resale', so they are being kept separate to at least some extent.

[bcj1755]

Yeah, that's right Barry! Make sure those older cars are destroyed so those of us that drive older cars won't be able to get parts:mad::mad: So when is King-Emperor Barack I going to give me a gov't incentive to get rid of my "clunker" since I can't afford a new car payment? Oh wait, maybe if I promise to vote Democrat in the next couple three elections, he'll make my car payment for me:rolleyes::rolleyes:

This is just another way to overwhelm the system and get more people dependent on Uncle Sugar so they can destroy this country...just like Cloward and Piven said:rolleyes::mad:

[Gun Geezer]

If you lift the hood on any automobile sold in the USA it must include a sticker that lists the point of origin of major components, typically the drive line, engine and transmission. For those of you who's mindset is only buy American, please avoid your neighborhood Chevy and Ford dealers. You will be very upset to find so few American parts. Assemblies with names like Korea, China, Japan, Mexico and France are sure to catch your eyes. Get over it and buy a Honda. Most of them are at least assembled over here rather than Mexico. If you don't like it, thank your labor unions, the EPA and OSHA. Then thank the colleges and universities who educate the foreign students who flock here and then take their knowledge and skills home. Don't forget to thank your government who, at the first inkling of financial woes, cuts funding to education and eliminates special programs for at risk kids. And don't forget state governments who repeatedly rob or underfund teachers pension funds. It should come as no surprise that the clunkers program is flawed. Since when has any government run program been successful. Just wait til they pass healthcare. It'll give new meaning to the words bend over.

[woody41]

I just open the drivers door and look for the uaw sticker, if there isn't one there I try another door.

[yellerdawg]

I dont know good or bad about the program...but read somewhere that the only winner of the clunkers program was the Ford F150 pick up...so much for getting a good milage vehicle....


( what I meant was...trading an OLD truck for a Newer one..?..)

[ampaterry]

The average clunker turned in on this program got 15.8 mpg.
The average new car purchased got 24.9.
My 99 Cad was rated at 18, but I got 22 to 23 around here, and up to 27 on the interstate.
The altima gets 32 around here, and the best on the road so far is 39.2, but my experience with Nissans is the mileage improves up to around 30,000 miles or so.

You folks driving GM might want to think about this, though.
ALL these old vehicles have to be done away with in the next six months.
That DOES mean no used parts, particularly for the big ones like Cad.

My daughter discovered that GM can NOT supply all parts for Cadillacs now. Her air-bag control module malfunctioned, and the DEALER can NOT get a new one to install. She is driving it without airbags right now, after refusing the Cadillac divisions offer of BELOW WHOLESALE for her car to relieve them of liability.

[tireman7.62x54r]

Last week I went to the local U-Pick-A-Part junk yard. There were lots of cash-for-clunkers vehicles there, they had stickers under the hood stating that the engine was ruined. I haven't heard how how long other parts will be sold before the vehicles are crushed.

[ampaterry]

Last week I went to the local U-Pick-A-Part junk yard. There were lots of cash-for-clunkers vehicles there, they had stickers under the hood stating that the engine was ruined. I haven't heard how how long other parts will be sold before the vehicles are crushed.

The C for C plan requires the salvage yards to completely dispose of the vehicles within 180 days of receiving them.

[Redhand]

I guess O'Slammer was trying to curb the inflation that was hitting the scrap metals market. Does anyone have a quesstimate on how much reprocessed metal can be had from a full size clunker? Does a company get carbon credits for smelting all the waste products into usable steel? Lets see 700,000 vehicles times 4/5 tires is 2,800,000. Thats alot of rubber hitting the dump. Are they going to recycle all the plastic parts? Junk science is Junk science, same for gruber-in-mint garbage in garbage out.:confused::eek::mad:

[rentalguy1]

I guess O'Slammer was trying to curb the inflation that was hitting the scrap metals market. Does anyone have a quesstimate on how much reprocessed metal can be had from a full size clunker? Does a company get carbon credits for smelting all the waste products into usable steel? Lets see 700,000 vehicles times 4/5 tires is 2,800,000. Thats alot of rubber hitting the dump. Are they going to recycle all the plastic parts? Junk science is Junk science, same for gruber-in-mint garbage in garbage out.:confused::eek::mad:

The tires and wheels have to be removed from a car before it can be crushed. The gas tank and all of the windows, too. I used to have a sideline business with a buddy of mine. We would rife around town and find clunkers, and then talk the owner into selling them to us for $50--100. We'd take them back to our shop and strip any usable and high demand parts. Then we would take out all the windows (or bust them if they were no good), drop the gas tank, and remove the wheels. Then off the the crusher we went. The cars were averaging about 2300 pounds and we were getting about $200 per car at the crusher. We made at least twice that amount from selling the parts on ebay. Not a bad return on investment, but I'd say C for C ended all of that. We got out of it a couple of years ago, when I could no longer physically do it.