Housing and taxes are much lower in many parts of Hawaii. If you eat a lot of fruit and vegetables as we do, you can get by very reasonably. If you eat out and like processed cereal etc. It is expensive. Last two times over gas was cheaper in Hilo than San Diego. I see now it is back to its normal higher price $2.46 at the station I use. Diesel is really expensive at about $3.29 per gallon or more. They generate a lot of their electricity with diesel.
Electricity is high. If you pick your home carefully you should not need air or heat year round. It gets more and more appealing as I watch that circus in Sacramento operate. I think they will tax the working class right out of the state. Retirees are already leaving in droves. With the huge backlog of empty homes I doubt the banks are paying the taxes. People driving less and buying hybrids has to cut into the gas tax.
Lots of surveys on this matter. If you factor in 30-40 different aspects of daily life, Hawaii doesn't rate all that well compared to where you are. You know how it is, the narrower the window we look through, the less we see.
Diesel is expensive in HI because they tax the hell out of it---more than California even. It's something like .51 cents a gallon just in tax.
I do look at Hawaii through a very narrow window. That being the East side of the Big Island. All the other Islands and the Kona side of the Big Island are strictly for those with LOTS of money. You are right that CA can be good for retirees IF they are able to maintain their Prop 13 tax base at a low level. We are about to lose ours as we cannot sell our home with the good tax base. I did think CA still had the highest tax on diesel. Maybe it was with the added sales tax when the price was very high.
I would probably not sell this place unless it got a lot crazier. I have planted more fruit trees to supplement our food bill. So we can live on a lot less if we really had to. Our car & PU do not cost that much as we only carry liability. The Sequoia is fully covered. Still waiting for Obama to give me $10k for the PU or LS400 to trade on a new one.
Well, I think I'd rather live as a bum in Hawaii as middle class in CA. Then again move to rural America (if you can handle the boredom) and everything is reasonable (except the heating bill) Hopefully most of you on the left coast at retirement age have been there a while and bought your housing when it was simply high and not crazy like it was before the bust.
I was thinking more of future oceanfront property just east of the fault line.
At a minimum if I believe the GW blog, I want to go inland to about 20 feet above sea level and possibly have ocean front property even before the big one occurs.
If I did not have 4 mortgages right now I would buy another place on spec. At this point in time you cannot build a house for what you can buy one all done. There are several in my area in different stages of completion at bargain prices. When you can buy a 2-5 year old home in top condition for $200 or less per square foot, it is a bargain. All the ones around me are at least one acre lots.
Yes, getting away from the coast anywhere in the world within the next 50 -100 years or so would be a good idea.
I'm not a big fan of clunkers IF....IF...they aren't up to snuff. I can only hope that any rebate plan targets THE RIGHT TYPE OF CLUNKER....which to me means a) gross polluter b) dangerous pile of junk.
From what I have observed the people driving those smoke billowing piles could not afford a new car if they did get $10k to buy a new one. You don't see the hundreds of beater trucks that we get here in San Diego. Mostly big stake beds loaded with old tires & appliances. They are all Mexican registered. According to the man that works for me they are stopping Mexican vehicles at the border to make sure they have US insurance. That is a good step in the right direction. Now if they would turn back the ones blowing black smoke it would be nice.
Well like just about everything else in the USA right now, there is no money to police any regulations we might come up with. The rebate plan is not a regulation of course, it is "incentive based", so it tries to "get people to do the right thing" by rewarding them rather than punishing them.
I'm a much bigger fan of incentive-based economics than I am of regulatory economics--mostly because a) the people you are trying to regulate usually end up writing the rules and b) regulation can be very costly.
If you think about it. Unless there is a cash rebate of $10k it will likely do no good. Someone driving a real beater is not likely to One pay $10k in taxes negating a tax credit. Or able to itemize rendering a deduction worthless. I think it is like so many things our Congress comes up with. Just plain useless. Or paybacks to those they are beholden to. And it ain't the individual voter/tax payer.
tax break schemes don't work. It's such a bankrupt idea. The trickle-down never trickles. It stays right at the top.
Even rebates are dubious if you think about it---obviously automakers have been giving out rebates for years, and look where they are. The automakers who gave out little or NO rebates seem to be the healthiest.
If rebates encourage credit spending on a large scale, I don't see this doing us any good at all.
The automakers who gave out little or NO rebates seem to be the healthiest
I've felt for years now it was stupid to do huge rebates. The Big 3 rather than scale back to meet the real demand started offering huge discounts and thus lowered profits. If demand was there and the supply was matched, people would still purchase cars. Not only that but it ultimately hurts the consumer as depreciation on used models gets excessive.
Just like Enron whenthey started a discount war on natural gas pricing, some lost and some won. They lost (for many other reasons) but the problem was when one discounts everyone joins in and kills profit. Walmart did it to the mom and pop stores as well. Only lately in this really bad market has Toyota and Nissan come up with some significant discounts.
I think our local MB dealership still wants to sell at MSRP and for the most part is still doing it. I've never been able to deal with them but they are still in business since they only make enough to supply the folk that are willing to pay. If their corporate goals were on sales numbers rather than revenue or profit I would expect to see dealers dumping them to move them. They know their product though and the market and won't do that unless they really see that it won't hurt them long term.
Craftsman tool are the same way. Love them but won't buy them until they are on sale. And they always have a sale; just have to wait.
The Mercedes dealers out here on the Left Coast are selling WAY below invoice. I get emails every day. Big discounts. Just waiting for Obama to send that $10k check and I am all over that ML320 CDI. Then all I got to do is find a sucker, I mean buyer for this gas guzzling Sequoia.
Well NOW yeah but Mercedes played hardball with buyers for years and years.
But then, interestingly enough, as they experienced the same reliability issues as the domestics, they started feeling the heat from the Lexus, BMW and Audi, and perhaps some from Cadillac and Jaguar.
But yes, a new Benz hi-tech diesel would be very tempting if that $10K could be thrown into the deal.
The Mercedes dealers out here on the Left Coast are selling WAY below invoice.
A few months ago when I was car shopping, I considered several things. One was a M35x. It had huge rebates but the dealer was offering nothing off MSRP and a lousey trade. I walked away. He's still sitting on them. I visited the MB dealership. They had a ML demo with a large discount but when I asked about a new one they were still wanting MSRP. I walked away. I saw Fitzmall advertise a CTS at almost $11K off. I called but that price program included a $5K discount for people cutrrently leasing any vehicle. My lease vehicle fell outside the window. I walked away. When I finaly came to my senses I went back to a hybrid.
I really didn't want a gas guzzler and I wanted more room than the CTS offers but I figured if I could get a great deal I'd take something and later consider a third vehicle. I don't look for anything specific most of the time. I have a list of cars I like and I look for the best overall deal, reguardless of the difference in prices.
I remember back in the day when I test drove a Audi Coupe Quatro. It put a grin on my face driving it. It was way cool back then. But when I told the salesperson I had two other comparisons to make he laughed when I told him one was a Volvo Turbo wagon and the other was a BMW 320i. He said these cars are nothing alike. I said I know that but I like all three of them and I'm simply looking for the best deal knowing that any of them would satisfy me.
Can anyone come up with a workable scenario wherein we include in a Clunker Plan, a plan to buy up and recycle/recondition old cars, thereby giving people work to do and giving lower income people a car to drive? Does this make any sense? A kind of 21st century "Automotive WPA Project"?
Don't have a plan but it needs to include allowing those less fortunate to move up to a more economical car. It needs to make sure people are buying an "approved" car, that is I would hate to see taxpayer money going to help people buy Hummers or F150's for that matter. I realize this is not a green plan but a stimulus but I wouldn't want to make this a plan where everyone simply trades as they normally do and get some benefit. It needs to be something that motivates someone NOT planning a purchase. Or if someone is planning a purchase then it needs to motivate them towards a purchase that helsp the US automotive industry AND have some environemntal impact; say an inprovement of 30% in EPA city values.
If we allow the less fortunate to simply trade up then there needs to be a determination about what cars need crushed and destroyed. Unfortunately people have differing ideas on what is a collectable. Perhaps people with old cars need an required antique plate and it would come with a use tax?
I know that helping dealerships is as important as helping manufacturers but many dealerships are not hurting as much and are not facing extinction. Thus helping an Audi, MB or even Toyota dealership, who will ultimately survive would seem like a waste of tax credit money.
As mentioned before a tax credit won't help many of the people who are being targeted. Many are getting back more than they already pay in. (Perhaps we should allow the poor to sell credits like the carbon folks?).
I also discovered this year as my children filled out a long form 1040 that the standard deduction is sometimes better even when you do have mortgage interest to claim. Thus a write off of interest on a loan or even sales tax is of no use unless it is a credit above the normal standard deduction. In this case it would go to help those like myself who are in a situation to write it off (not that I wouldn't like some relief myself).
If the car is collectible, people won't junk it. If it's not yet collectible, then there's no way to know if it ever will be. If the ones that turn out to be collectible but aren't now, are in fact 90% destroyed, that will just make the surviving ones even more valuable.
So I think the collector car market should just choose itself based on supply and demand as it now sits.
I think the horrible cost to fix the cars built in the last 20 Years will kill any collector value. Maybe an exotic or a Corvette. Ours is one of the first LS400s sold in San Diego back in October 1989. That and a couple bucks will get you a plain coffee at Starbucks.
I think that's generally true. Aside from a few limited production models, or some very pricey exotic supercars, most cars of the past 20 years will indeed be junked--certainly not restored after they are worn out. But they will give long service, much longer than the "classics" ever did.
"Can anyone come up with a workable scenario wherein we include in a Clunker Plan, a plan to buy up and recycle/recondition old cars, thereby giving people work to do and giving lower income people a car to drive? Does this make any sense?"
One would have to assign some numbers to such a plan to evaluate whether it would be justifiable, but in theory in could have merit. I think the devil would be in the details. In practice, I think the political hurdles, beginning with the auto industry lobby and the UAW, would be very difficult to surmount.
Let's assume, for sake of discussion, that there were a way to make such a plan politically palatable. My preference would be to emphasize the reconditioning component of the plan, and let the marketplace deal with recycling, as it's now doing. Besides simplifying the plan, I believe the marketplace, in conjunction with current safety and emissions laws, is the most efficient arbiter on when a vehicle should be scrapped.
As I've stated in previous messages, I believe that artificially increasing the scrappage rate to make work is wasteful. Why? Well, let me recycle (sorry) my example of hiring workers to smash windshields, and then hiring more workers to replace the broken ones. You create jobs by doing this, but it's make-work for the sake of making work. It doesn't buy you anything in the end. It's wasteful. You may argue with my analogy, but I think there's a significant element of waste in destroying a still useful asset, and replacing it with a new one, to create jobs. I know reasonable people differ on this point, but this is my opinion.
Now, the reconditioning component of the plan could be designed to not only employ a lot of workers, but to teach them new skills. Of course, only cars that are worth saving should be selected for the program. The marginal ones and the clunkers that still comply with current laws would be scrapped when their owners decide that it's time. You can quibble with individual decisions about whether and when to scrap a vehicle, but collectively people make rational economic decisions. I don't think a government bureaucracy can improve on this process by micromanaging it.
"A number of EU member states, in particular Austria, France Germany, and Spain, have introduced car scrapping schemes in a bid to boost dwindling sales of new models.
"We have got more work at the moment than we have had for five years," said Volker Muller, manager of Berlin scrapyard Auto-Ferch, according to reports in the Financial Times earlier this month.
The German scheme offers €2,500 to consumers who scrap an old car at least nine years old and purchase a new model.
Faced with a shortage of storage space, Japanese car manufacturer Toyota is currently hiring a ship in the Swedish port of Malmo to store thousands of unsold cars the depressed EU market does not seem to want."
Seemed like Obama had said some things in the past about opening up dialogue with Cuba. Maybe now would be time for Obama and Transp Secty to do out of box thinking. Cuba could use tens, hundreds thousands of more recent vintage cars to replace its citizens' fleets of patched up 50's cars.
Maybe US stimulus plan could incentivize Americans to get rid of anything over 10 years old and get 10-20K chit to buy American brand. All these old cars then rounded up, shipped to Cuba in exchange for something of value they have - cigars, whatever they have an abudance of. Win-win for everyone. Obama then would set up agreement to have US parts suppliers to sell parts for next 10-20 years to keep these cars going in Cuba.
Alas, just about all of those old cars in Cuba have been totally bastardized. Most of their collector value is already lost. Many have Russian engines, cut body panels, lots of missing chrome and lenses, etc.
DID offer everyone, say $2500, to scrap any car older than 9 years provided they bought a new one, do you think a lot of people would take them up on the offer? I don't think so. The reasons people are not getting back into the new car market right now do not include cars being $2500 too expensive, and the savings from keeping an older car running would far outweigh the $2500 thrown in by the government, given the high costs of purchasing a new car.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
DID offer everyone, say $2500, to scrap any car older than 9 years provided they bought a new one, do you think a lot of people would take them up on the offer?
I guess I would. My minivan is 10 years old and the trade-in value is around $1,000. I might could get $3,000 for it on craigslist but I doubt it. Then it, it's running fine and doesn't seem to be dying. Just have a bit of the itch for a bright shiny bauble. Maybe my wife would settle for a bottle of soap bubbles.
See, you fall into the second group I mentioned: you have a qualifying car that is still running OK, and you KNOW that the $2500 is a drop in the bucket of costs related to buying a new car, and that repairing the car you already have will be cheaper.
I'm just not convinced that the $2500 rebate really addresses the reasons people are staying away from new cars right now.
I DID hear that some few people are staying away because the recession has made them too upside-down in their cars to consider trading for a new one, and the $2500 COULD help with that.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
$2500 wouldn't do it for me. Any car I have that is that old I could sell for more than that. Even if it weren't that's way too much debt to get into at this point. The last thing I need now is a car loan.
If they want to offer me $10K maybe we could talk.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
Well, most plans being proposed have as at least ONE of their purposes stimulating the auto industry, and the private sale of a $2500 hooptie from one party to another does nothing for the auto industry.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
my 2000 Intrepid put me into sort of a crossroads situation. On Sunday I was coming home, and about a half mile from home, it started squealing like a pig, and acted like it was going to stall out. It went away, but did it a few more times, and when I pulled into the driveway, almost on cue, smoke started pouring from under the hood. My first instinct was to look at the temp gauge, but it was normal.
Well, when I popped the hood, I saw smoke coming from the a/c compressor. So I'm guessing it's starting to seize up, or the pulley or whatever is going bad. Fortunately, the car's still driveable, as long as I don't do anything that makes the compressor come on, such as turning on the a/c or the defogger. Kind of a pain this time of year though, as I couldn't use it to help defrost the windshield this morning. :sick:
Anyway, it did get me thinking, that maybe now it's time to just give up on this car, and get into something newer. I imagine fixing the a/c could easily run $1000 or more. And that's on top of the ~$1,000 I put into it last year, and the ~$2,000 I put into it in 2007.
But, the more I thought about it, it still doesn't make sense. First off, I imagine any new/newish car I bought would cost me at least $2,000 the second I brought it home. FWIW, when I bought the Intrepid, I put $2,000 down. And I imagine just about anything newer I bought could easily drop $100 a month or more just in depreciation.
My biggest fear, I guess, is that I could sink the money into the a/c, and then have the tranny or the engine go out. And if one of those two dies, that car is history!
But, I'm gonna go ahead and take the gamble. So, other than the bill from the mechanic, it looks like I won't be helping to stimulate the economy much, anytime soon.
But, the more I thought about it, it still doesn't make sense. First off, I imagine any new/newish car I bought would cost me at least $2,000 the second I brought it home. FWIW, when I bought the Intrepid, I put $2,000 down. And I imagine just about anything newer I bought could easily drop $100 a month or more just in depreciation.
Of course, on the flip side any new car you bought would guarantee you no-cost operation for at least 3 years, except for oil changes which the Intrepid will also cost you. AND you would have working A/C (is there anything else in the Intrepid that's not working?). And no surprises, no smoke, no pig-squealing, and no potential stranding (one hopes).
If you can get a loan with a good rate, it seems like it's a buyer's market right now in the car biz....
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
It's a good time to get a bargain, but of course, to get that bargain you have to part with some of our wallpaper currency.
I know when the tranny was slipping on my mother's Taurus and her mechanic said it would soon need some massive work, she thought for about half a second before deciding to ditch it. Of course then she recanted and said she was sad to see it go...but in the long run she's better off. Oh yeah, and last summer it's AC became lukewarm too. She didn't think it was worth getting looked at.
Could you just bypass or remove the compressor like people did back in the old days?
That's the way I feel about my Park Ave. I just put front brakes on it last week. I'll fix small to moderate things, but if it puked a tranny or something, I guess it would be adios.
i assume the tires and brakes won't need replacing anytime soon and you will have your mechanic give you his opinion on the engine/tranny/axles/cooling. you may want to check around to see if you find out if the defrost still works without the compessor. it may work, just not be as good at defogging. that is a long shot, though. here is an example of what you get for 09 bigger engine? (more fuel), definitely bigger rims (more expensive to replace tires).
"...I could sink the money into the a/c, and then have the tranny or the engine go out. And if one of those two dies, that car is history!
But, I'm gonna go ahead and take the gamble."
If your goal is low cost-to-own, and owning a new or newer car isn't a high priority, then that's a reasonable gamble. Why? I think it's likely the engine will go 200,000-300,000. That means you could also invest in one transmission when the original one fails.
Another way to look at it is that your car is 90% depreciated, especially without working A/C. If the engine failed, I'd get rid of the car. That's the chance you'd be taking. Since you maintain your cars and aren't hard on them in your driving, the chances your engine wouldn't make it to at least 200,000 miles are good, in my opinion.
America already has about 250 million vehicles on the road. If we all decided to take a ride at the same time---the entire US population---there would be no one in the back seats!!!
I think most people could just keep buying used cars until they died without running out of rolling stock.
I believe you'll find that disconnecting the elecrical connection to the A/C compressor will keep it from engaging and then it would work only as a belt tensioner. As was mentioned in an earlier post, your defroster would work, but less effectively. If you don't disconnect the wiring, your defrost switch will engage the compressor clutch and it won't take long for the belt to break or for the noise to drive you nuts, whichever comes first.
Comments
Electricity is high. If you pick your home carefully you should not need air or heat year round. It gets more and more appealing as I watch that circus in Sacramento operate. I think they will tax the working class right out of the state. Retirees are already leaving in droves. With the huge backlog of empty homes I doubt the banks are paying the taxes. People driving less and buying hybrids has to cut into the gas tax.
Diesel is expensive in HI because they tax the hell out of it---more than California even. It's something like .51 cents a gallon just in tax.
I would probably not sell this place unless it got a lot crazier. I have planted more fruit trees to supplement our food bill. So we can live on a lot less if we really had to. Our car & PU do not cost that much as we only carry liability. The Sequoia is fully covered. Still waiting for Obama to give me $10k for the PU or LS400 to trade on a new one.
Hopefully most of you on the left coast at retirement age have been there a while and bought your housing when it was simply high and not crazy like it was before the bust.
At a minimum if I believe the GW blog, I want to go inland to about 20 feet above sea level and possibly have ocean front property even before the big one occurs.
I'm not a big fan of clunkers IF....IF...they aren't up to snuff. I can only hope that any rebate plan targets THE RIGHT TYPE OF CLUNKER....which to me means a) gross polluter b) dangerous pile of junk.
I'm a much bigger fan of incentive-based economics than I am of regulatory economics--mostly because a) the people you are trying to regulate usually end up writing the rules and b) regulation can be very costly.
Even rebates are dubious if you think about it---obviously automakers have been giving out rebates for years, and look where they are. The automakers who gave out little or NO rebates seem to be the healthiest.
If rebates encourage credit spending on a large scale, I don't see this doing us any good at all.
I've felt for years now it was stupid to do huge rebates. The Big 3 rather than scale back to meet the real demand started offering huge discounts and thus lowered profits. If demand was there and the supply was matched, people would still purchase cars. Not only that but it ultimately hurts the consumer as depreciation on used models gets excessive.
Just like Enron whenthey started a discount war on natural gas pricing, some lost and some won. They lost (for many other reasons) but the problem was when one discounts everyone joins in and kills profit. Walmart did it to the mom and pop stores as well. Only lately in this really bad market has Toyota and Nissan come up with some significant discounts.
I think our local MB dealership still wants to sell at MSRP and for the most part is still doing it. I've never been able to deal with them but they are still in business since they only make enough to supply the folk that are willing to pay. If their corporate goals were on sales numbers rather than revenue or profit I would expect to see dealers dumping them to move them. They know their product though and the market and won't do that unless they really see that it won't hurt them long term.
Craftsman tool are the same way. Love them but won't buy them until they are on sale. And they always have a sale; just have to wait.
But then, interestingly enough, as they experienced the same reliability issues as the domestics, they started feeling the heat from the Lexus, BMW and Audi, and perhaps some from Cadillac and Jaguar.
But yes, a new Benz hi-tech diesel would be very tempting if that $10K could be thrown into the deal.
A few months ago when I was car shopping, I considered several things. One was a M35x. It had huge rebates but the dealer was offering nothing off MSRP and a lousey trade. I walked away. He's still sitting on them. I visited the MB dealership. They had a ML demo with a large discount but when I asked about a new one they were still wanting MSRP. I walked away. I saw Fitzmall advertise a CTS at almost $11K off. I called but that price program included a $5K discount for people cutrrently leasing any vehicle. My lease vehicle fell outside the window. I walked away. When I finaly came to my senses I went back to a hybrid.
I really didn't want a gas guzzler and I wanted more room than the CTS offers but I figured if I could get a great deal I'd take something and later consider a third vehicle. I don't look for anything specific most of the time. I have a list of cars I like and I look for the best overall deal, reguardless of the difference in prices.
I remember back in the day when I test drove a Audi Coupe Quatro. It put a grin on my face driving it. It was way cool back then. But when I told the salesperson I had two other comparisons to make he laughed when I told him one was a Volvo Turbo wagon and the other was a BMW 320i. He said these cars are nothing alike. I said I know that but I like all three of them and I'm simply looking for the best deal knowing that any of them would satisfy me.
Info on WPA
If we allow the less fortunate to simply trade up then there needs to be a determination about what cars need crushed and destroyed. Unfortunately people have differing ideas on what is a collectable. Perhaps people with old cars need an required antique plate and it would come with a use tax?
I know that helping dealerships is as important as helping manufacturers but many dealerships are not hurting as much and are not facing extinction. Thus helping an Audi, MB or even Toyota dealership, who will ultimately survive would seem like a waste of tax credit money.
As mentioned before a tax credit won't help many of the people who are being targeted. Many are getting back more than they already pay in. (Perhaps we should allow the poor to sell credits like the carbon folks?).
I also discovered this year as my children filled out a long form 1040 that the standard deduction is sometimes better even when you do have mortgage interest to claim. Thus a write off of interest on a loan or even sales tax is of no use unless it is a credit above the normal standard deduction. In this case it would go to help those like myself who are in a situation to write it off (not that I wouldn't like some relief myself).
So I think the collector car market should just choose itself based on supply and demand as it now sits.
One would have to assign some numbers to such a plan to evaluate whether it would be justifiable, but in theory in could have merit. I think the devil would be in the details. In practice, I think the political hurdles, beginning with the auto industry lobby and the UAW, would be very difficult to surmount.
Let's assume, for sake of discussion, that there were a way to make such a plan politically palatable. My preference would be to emphasize the reconditioning component of the plan, and let the marketplace deal with recycling, as it's now doing. Besides simplifying the plan, I believe the marketplace, in conjunction with current safety and emissions laws, is the most efficient arbiter on when a vehicle should be scrapped.
As I've stated in previous messages, I believe that artificially increasing the scrappage rate to make work is wasteful. Why? Well, let me recycle (sorry) my example of hiring workers to smash windshields, and then hiring more workers to replace the broken ones. You create jobs by doing this, but it's make-work for the sake of making work. It doesn't buy you anything in the end. It's wasteful. You may argue with my analogy, but I think there's a significant element of waste in destroying a still useful asset, and replacing it with a new one, to create jobs. I know reasonable people differ on this point, but this is my opinion.
Now, the reconditioning component of the plan could be designed to not only employ a lot of workers, but to teach them new skills. Of course, only cars that are worth saving should be selected for the program. The marginal ones and the clunkers that still comply with current laws would be scrapped when their owners decide that it's time. You can quibble with individual decisions about whether and when to scrap a vehicle, but collectively people make rational economic decisions. I don't think a government bureaucracy can improve on this process by micromanaging it.
"We have got more work at the moment than we have had for five years," said Volker Muller, manager of Berlin scrapyard Auto-Ferch, according to reports in the Financial Times earlier this month.
The German scheme offers €2,500 to consumers who scrap an old car at least nine years old and purchase a new model.
Faced with a shortage of storage space, Japanese car manufacturer Toyota is currently hiring a ship in the Swedish port of Malmo to store thousands of unsold cars the depressed EU market does not seem to want."
EU overflowing with unsold cars (EU Observer)
Maybe US stimulus plan could incentivize Americans to get rid of anything over 10 years old and get 10-20K chit to buy American brand. All these old cars then rounded up, shipped to Cuba in exchange for something of value they have - cigars, whatever they have an abudance of. Win-win for everyone. Obama then would set up agreement to have US parts suppliers to sell parts for next 10-20 years to keep these cars going in Cuba.
The cigar idea though, that has some promise! :P
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I guess I would. My minivan is 10 years old and the trade-in value is around $1,000. I might could get $3,000 for it on craigslist but I doubt it. Then it, it's running fine and doesn't seem to be dying. Just have a bit of the itch for a bright shiny bauble. Maybe my wife would settle for a bottle of soap bubbles.
I'm just not convinced that the $2500 rebate really addresses the reasons people are staying away from new cars right now.
I DID hear that some few people are staying away because the recession has made them too upside-down in their cars to consider trading for a new one, and the $2500 COULD help with that.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
If they want to offer me $10K maybe we could talk.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
No, I don't see them offering $2,500 to buy a $2,500 car.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Well, when I popped the hood, I saw smoke coming from the a/c compressor. So I'm guessing it's starting to seize up, or the pulley or whatever is going bad. Fortunately, the car's still driveable, as long as I don't do anything that makes the compressor come on, such as turning on the a/c or the defogger. Kind of a pain this time of year though, as I couldn't use it to help defrost the windshield this morning. :sick:
Anyway, it did get me thinking, that maybe now it's time to just give up on this car, and get into something newer. I imagine fixing the a/c could easily run $1000 or more. And that's on top of the ~$1,000 I put into it last year, and the ~$2,000 I put into it in 2007.
But, the more I thought about it, it still doesn't make sense. First off, I imagine any new/newish car I bought would cost me at least $2,000 the second I brought it home. FWIW, when I bought the Intrepid, I put $2,000 down. And I imagine just about anything newer I bought could easily drop $100 a month or more just in depreciation.
My biggest fear, I guess, is that I could sink the money into the a/c, and then have the tranny or the engine go out. And if one of those two dies, that car is history!
But, I'm gonna go ahead and take the gamble. So, other than the bill from the mechanic, it looks like I won't be helping to stimulate the economy much, anytime soon.
Of course, on the flip side any new car you bought would guarantee you no-cost operation for at least 3 years, except for oil changes which the Intrepid will also cost you. AND you would have working A/C (is there anything else in the Intrepid that's not working?). And no surprises, no smoke, no pig-squealing, and no potential stranding (one hopes).
If you can get a loan with a good rate, it seems like it's a buyer's market right now in the car biz....
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I know when the tranny was slipping on my mother's Taurus and her mechanic said it would soon need some massive work, she thought for about half a second before deciding to ditch it. Of course then she recanted and said she was sad to see it go...but in the long run she's better off. Oh yeah, and last summer it's AC became lukewarm too. She didn't think it was worth getting looked at.
Could you just bypass or remove the compressor like people did back in the old days?
you may want to check around to see if you find out if the defrost still works without the compessor. it may work, just not be as good at defogging.
that is a long shot, though.
here is an example of what you get for 09
bigger engine? (more fuel), definitely bigger rims (more expensive to replace tires).
Remember that years or miles do not wear out brakes, stopping does. :shades:
But, I'm gonna go ahead and take the gamble."
If your goal is low cost-to-own, and owning a new or newer car isn't a high priority, then that's a reasonable gamble. Why? I think it's likely the engine will go 200,000-300,000. That means you could also invest in one transmission when the original one fails.
Another way to look at it is that your car is 90% depreciated, especially without working A/C. If the engine failed, I'd get rid of the car. That's the chance you'd be taking. Since you maintain your cars and aren't hard on them in your driving, the chances your engine wouldn't make it to at least 200,000 miles are good, in my opinion.
You must keep your speed below 5 mph... or maybe coast to a stop all the time.....
I thought I was kidding on the 21 year brakes. I'm beginning to wonder.
I think most people could just keep buying used cars until they died without running out of rolling stock.