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Comments
It takes all the emotionalism and sense of agita out of the process. If there's any doubt about qualifications or paperwork simply allow the process to go forward, then complete the transaction.
It was the auto industry that wrote the rules. If you're angry then picket in front of GM or Ford or Toyota or Nissan. BTW this has nothing to do with anything 'green' except in the press. It was a bone thrown to the Greenies by the auto industry and the military and intelligence communities. By cloaking it in something green it hides the real secondary purpose. USE LESS FUEL, IMPROVE NATIONAL SECURITY.
You might also want to send a nasty email to the Pentagon or the NSA and complain about being shutout.
Exactly.
CARS is really screwing people over badly.
I will bet anyone here that you'll be able to get as good or a better deal 4-5 months after CARS expires, even without a clunker trade in, than you will now with one.
This doesn't just relate to Hyundai, but all manufacturers and dealers.
I love how the manufacturers are advertising the highest CARS rebate as if it's something everyone qualifies for, too, to get to a really low advertised price, when in reality, very few people will qualify for the $3,500 or $4,500 rebates.
This whole sordid mess is only getting more people into the showrooms with false expectations, and for those buying, they're getting screwed for the most part, especially if they're trading in a qualifying clunker that has a used car value of more than a grand (and especially more than two grand).
Worst program ever, allowing dealers and manufacturers to essentially get more customers in the door, and for those who do have qualifying clunkers, the dealer and manufacturer pocket most of the 3,500 or 4,500 rebate because of the lowered manufacturer and dealer rebates and incentives.
It does make you wonder about the agenda of our Congress. They should have done the same thing they did with the hybrid program. When a maker reaches a certain level the giveaway ends. Giving a tax credit is fair way to go. Then you are returning the tax dollars to the people that pay taxes, you and I. As some here like to believe, the rules of this program were NOT written by GM, Ford, etc. Congress handed the concept to the agencies. They have muddled through making more people angry than happy with their changing mileage calculations and purchase criteria. Will the dealers get paid in a timely manner? That is also doubtful. So a month from now the dealer calls the purchaser to tell him he missed the cutoff and is on the hook for an additional $4500 or the deal is off.
This whole sordid mess is only getting more people into the showrooms with false expectations, and for those buying, they're getting screwed for the most part, especially if they're trading in a qualifying clunker that has a used car value of more than a grand (and especially more than two grand).
Worst program ever, allowing dealers and manufacturers to essentially get more customers in the door, and for those who do have qualifying clunkers, the dealer and manufacturer pocket most of the 3,500 or 4,500 rebate because of the lowered manufacturer and dealer rebates and incentives.
Lots of people going to dealerships looking to buy vehicles??? BINGO. Program is a success. Dealerships and automakers generating additional profits???? BINGO. Program is doing exactly what it was written to do.
Again for the hundredth time herein. This legislation was written by and for the auto industry to stimulate volume and generate additional revenue and profits. It's working perfectly if your comments are true. You personally have the choice of participating or not. It's completely voluntary.
I think they probably will get paid in a timely manner. The first few might take a little longer. The federal government has a pretty good system for distributing payment. I work for a non profit and we were recipients of a federal grant where we had to submit vouchers as we spent the money. The paperwork was daunting, but once we had our ducks in a row, payment came quickly (it's all electronic...submission and transfer of funds).
so far nobody has explained how they could legally do that without any kind of initial provision
Again, I feel the government is very efficient at releasing funds that are due. Ever receive a tax refund...way faster with the federal than our NYS. How about the stimulus checks that the governement decided to send out under the Bush administration? Fast and easy. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I don't feel that our federal government is all that bad at distributing payment...NYS is another story! Healthcare...I wouldn't touch that one with a 10 foot pole!
I would read the fine print on your contract with the dealer. At least a couple of our sales people have told us their dealerships have a clause that protects them if the deal falls through with the Feds.
I will bet anyone here that you'll be able to get as good or a better deal 4-5 months after CARS expires, even without a clunker trade in, than you will now with one.
I have to say, I'm very pleased with the deal that we received. It's several hundred dollars lower than the Edmunds TMV "what are others paying". If people either started early working their clunker deals or have extreme patience doing it now, they should come out ok. Dealers are still in competition. Do not be at their mercy clunker traders.
We got a very nice deal, but the subsequent CFC, combined with writing off the sales tax screwed over those who helped out earlier this year.
What a crock. We had a'95 Nissan Pathfinder that qualified perfectly, but sold that two months ago privately for $1000.
Do we like the '09? Yeah. It's great. Are they jacking up prices on the '10s? Probably, but we would not even mention the CFC portion until we ironed out the deal. Are there some sour grapes? You bet. If we include the tax write-off, we could've saved almost 5K on a '10.
This is only partially true. As a taxpayer, my participation was mandatory.
Don't get me wrong - I'm happy for dealerships that are making money and sales due to this program. I'm happy for consumers who are getting good deals. But I personally believe that this is only "frontloading" sales that would've happened eventually - meaning, when this program ends, will auto sales come to a screeching halt?
I'm also terribly disappointed with the way the program was written and is run by the government. I rarely blog, but I did on this one:
Deception is 9/10 of the Law
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Ding, ding, ding .... we have a winner!
Same thing happened after 9/11 --- our president wanted all of us to get out and spend money, so GM started their "Get America Rolling" promotion, or something similar, with 0% financing. Other manufacturers jumped on board as well. Car sales went through the roof.
But, when the incentives ended, sales took a nose dive. Many of these sales were to people who would have bought anyway, but did it early to take advantage of the deals being offered.
I see the same thing happening here - yes, there will be a nice bump in the sales numbers for the next few months, but I don't think we're going to see the sales pace return to 15+ million sales per year for quite some time.
Let's consider this scenario: a person commits a crime and the law says he should get a life in prison punishment. After the person serves one year in prison, the court detects a mistake in his sentencing and now he will get a death penalty. Is this fair to the person?
I also got a great deal but, this is because we have dealers in competition with eachother. In many smaller or rural towns there is only one dealer and they have to travel hundreds of miles to find another dealership. The internet might work for them, but they would have to get their clunkers to the better priced dealers who are located far away. Competition isn't always possible.
Will I be buying a new car now- absolutely not. It will be interesting to see what happens to the used car market now. This program should have more people who would have normally purchased used vehicles buying new, and should leave used dealers with a lot of stale inventory and with new cars selling cheaper it should drive down the value of used cars even more. So maybe come September and the end of the sales quarter between leftovers and used cars, as others predicted, maybe i'll get an even better deal than I would have now...
The wife can become a co-owner if she wants.But-Any specific reason why the wife wants to have it specifically in her name when her hubby automatically qualifies for the CFC program?
And Dodge cars sell for invoice or less and hence are a screaming bargain right now with dealers desperate to unload 09 and 08 cars.
Toyota and Honda sealers would want more than invoice for their cars.Hence less of a bargain.
So for example, you can get a 16k Dodge for 16k-9k=7k depending on the vehicle you select.That`s a heck of a deal.I would never buy any domestic new as they depreciate horribly,but this offer from Dodge could be too good to pass for a lot of folks.
Just MHO.
The dealer submitted my paperwork in the system yesterday (gather the system crashed on Monday afternoon, and it took them five hours to get the first deal into the system. They've been really great about the process, but final delivery is held up until they know that it's going through and approved. Be nice if there were some real info as to how many deals have been submitted, if it looks like there's enough funding for a while, etc. Hoping to take delivery by Saturday before I go on vacation.
IMHO, EDMUNDS.COM should take down their own list to avoid adding more confusion for buyers.
You will more likely get ripped off IF you won't compromise on what you want. If you are dead set on a Rav4 or CRV and won't consider the others, you will most likely pay more. Facts of life.
Same thing happened after 9/11 --- our president wanted all of us to get out and spend money, so GM started their "Get America Rolling" promotion, or something similar, with 0% financing. Other manufacturers jumped on board as well. Car sales went through the roof.
But, when the incentives ended, sales took a nose dive.
I would say this very different for two reasons:
1. current annual sales are around 9.5 million, FAR short of the 12 million attrittion rate in the U.S. That rate is also FAR FAR short of the post-9/11 sales rate. And...
2. the whole program will only authorize 250,000 vehicle sales, or 0.25 million. Not much compared to the replacement rate shortfall we are currently experiencing.
If they continue the program with further legislation and funding, and keep doing so ad infinitum, we may eventually (like the middle of next year) be pulling forward sales, but I don't think that's possible this calendar year.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
So here's my thought. I turn my old POS truck in for the rebate and then immeadiatly gift the new car to my son.
The rules say you have to have owned the clunker for a year but I havn't seen anything requiring you to keep the new vehicle.
Any opinions? :confuse:
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Has anyone had, seen or heard of a transaction being approved by the cars system yet??
joe
I can't speak for all brands but for the new car brands I sell on a regular basis(Volvo and Saab) all incentives either stayed the same between June and July or went up.
Saab stayed basically the same across the board.
Volvo more then doubled some of their incentives. The S60 had only 3,000 or so dollars on it now it has 7,500 or 5,000 dollars. Every other vehicle went up by at least a few hundred dollars. All of the owner loyalty money stayed the same and some of the conquest cash that was limited to owners of certain brands became market allowance money that could be given to anyone.
In summary you don't know what you are talking about.
On the other hand, there are a lot of anecdotes involving dealers who either offer less of a discount than they otherwise would, or try to nickel and dime C4C customers in other ways.
The main purpose of it is to help the automakers and dealers move iron. It's intended primarily to boost sales by about 10%. The law was created by the auto industry for its own purposes...sell more units....preferably profitable units.
The secondary purpose is to get 1 million old gas guzzlers off the roads and kill them. This is being driven by the 'quiet hand' of the US Govt.
Every other consideration is of minor consequence.
All funds are returned,
The trade is put back in the hands of the owner with the original tags on it.
The title is returned to the original owner.
The new vehicle is never delivered or is returned by the purchaser.
All finance contracts are cancelled.
The buyer must sign this addendum or we will not go any further.
Well if the supply of certain new cars starts to try up then yes I can see dealers starting to offer smaller discounts. That is how supply and demand works. I can see some of the early dealers screwing up the scrap value thing as that really was confusing but I guess most of them have it figured out right now. I don't care about 100 or 200 bucks of scrap minus the 50 dollar fee but if someone wants 500 dollars scrap value on top of the C4C rebate I would most likely pass on the dea.