By accessing this website, you acknowledge that Edmunds and its third party business partners may use cookies, pixels, and similar technologies to collect information about you and your interactions with the website as described in our
Privacy Statement, and you agree that your use of the website is subject to our
Visitor Agreement.
Comments
Who is To Blame?
Don’t blame the NHTSA or the EPA.
Congress handed the NHTSA a bill that required their staff to implement a new national rebate program in 30 days. If anyone knows what goes into planning a national IT infrastructure project that can handle ten of thousands of simultaneous Internet connections; the 30 day requirements was doomed for failure.
It was unrealistic to expect NHTSA lawyers to review a bill and come up with a comprehensive set of rules and guidelines in 30 days. They did a good job but there are so many unanswered questions, the Final Rule is just a final draft.
Our legislators drafted language that created this rush and stress on the automotive retail industry. It would seem that automotive retailers were really not part of the planning when the language of the bill was drafted.
So if Americans are feeling that there is a rush to get a health care bill passed is the CARS program a clear warning that rushing into another unrealistic expectation could spell disaster?
This mess is from the WORST Congress ever elected.
"Representatives Sander Levin of Michigan and Betty Sutton of Ohio, both Democrats, said this week that they may try to extend the program if the initial allotment is exhausted swiftly. "
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601209&sid=anhSjXp64Ul8
Why should they? They had to draw the line somewhere and you missed it. That's life. A lot of people are in the same boat.
" The dealer has not been very helpful"
What do you want the dealer to do? Ignore the rules and take in your non qualifing car?
Dealers are scared they won't get paid on the cars that do qualify!
Worst case senario would be you would have to make up the difference between the 3500.00 and what your car actually appraised for. Very doubtful they would distroy your car until they have the money or get declined.
I have to assume the dealer would be diligent in processing the paperwork.
http://www.cars.gov/
This rule (if true; I did not check) makes no sense, unless there is a guarantee of payment to dealers,
After the MPG revision and the scare of no funding left, I bet dealers will start implementing procedures to protect themselves. This is a business decision, not meant to be unfriendly to customers.
Uncharted waters and a bizarre program as never before.
No, not at all but some of the customers are acting like we are being the bad guys here.
I will refrain (man, it's hard) from making a political comment here!
I'm sure you don't. You don't have 3500-4500 dollars per car on the line, do you?
" I am certain that dealers are going to get fair warning that the fund is running low"
Really? do you know this for "certain"? If it were your dealership woujld YOU take the chance?
This time next month that might not be the case. Will be interesting to see what the estimate of funds left over looks like Monday afternoon once most of the back log of old deals is done.
Hmmm....where do I start......
Dealers were given NO logistical information until AFTER they registered for the program, which was difficult in it's own right. Our wonderful government gave no prior information to dealers ahead of time that indicated what any procedure would be for submitting a CARS deal. They decided to bombard every dealer with all the details all at once. This was all on Friday....
Now, here is the problem for submitting a CARS deal...
We have to scan several documents and have them submitted through a complex submission system which is constantly OVERLOADED with 20,000 dealers trying to do so at the same time. The system constantly freezes and logs you off stating "your session has been timed out". Geez...yet another inefficient government program.
My gripe is not with the idea of the program, but rather how complex it is. Maybe the government should have developed a system in joint with the auto manufactures and how they do their business. Auto manufacturers' systems are far more efficient for dealers to report sales.
The good is what it creates sales for my store and an American Citizen gets to in theory "sell" their POS to the Government for $3,500-$4,500. Not one vehicle I have taken in under the CARS program has had a trade value over $1,000.
The bad is how the program is carried out logisticaly and more unnecessary government spending.
I'm sure you don't. You don't have 3500-4500 dollars per car on the line, do you?
" I am certain that dealers are going to get fair warning that the fund is running low"
Really? do you know this for "certain"? If it were your dealership woujld YOU take the chance?
I'm not going to get into a pissing match with you over this. I am sure you are making a profit on the cars you sell. The more you sell, the higher the profits. If dealers want to make a lot of money right now, they will make sure they are educated about this rebate, and make the transaction as painless as possible. End of story. This is a business transaction, and should not be emotional. The first dealer I went to was emotional, unhelpful, and generally ticked-off. Guess what, I went somewhere else. I am sure I am not alone. Make no mistake, I am sure most on this forum realize this is a giant headache for dealers, and requires multiple additional steps, but I am still going to spend my money where I feel most comfortable.
More than 22,330 dealers signed up to participate in the program, which the U.S. estimates will pay for as many as 250,000 vehicle sales, about 11 per dealer.
I hope my dealer can get my data into the system soon (if not already done)...
The government should save millions of the CARS promotion money on improving the computer system (hire Google to handle the data processing).
http://www.cashforclunkersfacts.com/bill/858-million-left-for-cars-program
for what it's worth (not much) the meter was just now updated to show 779 mil left for non CAT3, so about 11% gone.
A gift for tax purposes is exactly at the name inplies. It is given from one person to another without any future expectations. Good try for those of you trying to avoid sales tax, but if the underlying transaction is that the giftor gives the vehicle to the giftee and the giftee in turn gives cash to the giftor, it is not a gift transaction.
The amount for 2009 for a true gift is 13,000 per person before reporting of the gift is required. Even if the gift needs to be reported, it may not have tax due based on the persons lifetime gifts given.
A husband and wife can give 26,000 to a person (13K each). Likewise a person can give 26,000 to a husband and wife.
As a separate note, the sales tax deduction for federal tax is only available to the first purchaser. If one buys a car and turns around and resells it, the second person is buying a used car rather than a new one and the sales tax deduction is not allowed.
so it sounds like in order to get the company's name off the car, my aunt or i will have to purchase the car and pay all taxes...?
if my aunt gifts the car to me but i dont pay her for it, am i exempt from the taxes? the car is about 25k so sounds like she would have to report it.
thanks for the info!
Scared to DEATH here!!!!
I have been booted 3 times today from the submission system. I guess the only way to report these sales is to logon at 2AM when no one else is trying to report sales. I'm sure my wife will be happy with that....
the trouble is the number of pending sales yet to be processed is certainly much higher than that and nobody can do anything but guess how much is really left.
You are correct in that if your Aunt gifted it to you without you paying, she would need to report it, but unless she has gifted quite a bit over her lifetime, she would not owe tax. But, she would first have to xfer it to her instead of the corp.
If you buy it from the corp, you would owe sales tax on the FMV.
Do you think the rate of sales will remain the same? I've been wondering about that. I know people have been waiting for the program so there is the initial rush once the program rules rolled out so things are hopping this first week. I just wonder if the level will continue for the next month or two or taper off.
At this rate, the funds won't last long.
This has nothig to do with emotions just sound business sense. If a store was "unhelpful and "ticked off shame on them but don't fault them for trying to protect thier assets and we are talking about BIG dollars.
To me it looks like you think...
They wouldn't do what I wanted + BAD STORE
They did want I wanted = GOOD STORE
I can see how you would feel this way but I still have to wonder, as a business owner, what stance you would have taken.
This car has been manufactured in Canada and it is GM. So if CA stands for Cananda then this car qualifies
Some Clunker Deals Based On Old EPA Numbers Will Be Honored, DOT Rules
July 30, 2009
The U.S. Department of Transportation has ruled that deals involving cash for clunkers trade- CARS logo - 220.JPGins based on old mileage numbers and consummated before July 24 will be honored, but deals consummated after July 24 on vehicles that became ineligible as clunkers due to mileage ratings changes will not be honored.
He may have entered it in but it takes 3-5 days to get approval and then the dealer gets his money 10 days after that.
I forget what the "FFS" stands for, but the "CA" means that the car built under the stricter California/high altitude smog requirements. That means that the car puts out less pollution than a regular "49 state" car, but does so at the cost of fuel economy and horsepower. I know it sounds strange that the car can run cleaner, yet burn more fuel, but it does!
I think nowadays all cars are "50 state" cars, which makes things a little easier to decipher.
Unfortunately, I don't know if there's any way in the VIN to be able to tell whether your '85 is a "49 state" car or a "CA" car. Did you buy it brand-new? Or at least know where it was originally purchased?
They did want I wanted = GOOD STORE
Oh isn't that the truth. Some what off topic but somewhat not.
Back in the beginning of the month I had a guy that wanted to buy a wagon I think originally. Emailed in looking for lease numbers. They were higher then he wanted but I told him that is just how that wagon leases tell me what you are looking to spend per month and I can show you cars that will lease or finance in that range. He wouldn't tell me and that is fine cause everyone tells people not to tell the dealer what payment you want to be at. Sometimes that just makes things much more difficult like in this case.
A day or two goes by and I get a call from another guy who claims to be so and so's friend who is really going to be buying the car. Now things are getting strange. He comes in we look at cars he finally settles on a pre-owned Jeep that puts him in his payment range. Now we are trying to get them financed with guy number one as the buyer and guy number two as the co-buyer. We can't get it done because guy number 2 has horrid, bad, credit. NO bank will touch him. We tell them the situation and with the income they are both reporting why don't they just buy it with cash? We try to be nice about it but they make enough per month combined to buy the car on a single weeks income.
No, no, no they don't want to do that can't guy number 1 finance the car and have guy number 2 on the reg but not on the loan? Uhh no we can't do that that is illegal and a straw purchase. They get all huffy and kill the deal cause some other dealer says they will do it that way. We tell them go right ahead but you aren't supposed to do that it is illegal per State law.
They leave all huffy because we won't do what they want even though it is ILLEGAL.
My wife is bringing a pizza and a 6 pack tonight after we close and we are going clunker claiming. I have about 10 submitted so far and have twice that many more to do. So far I think the program is a great success.
The people who don't like it are the ones who don't qualify. Duh??? The Toyota store is asking full sticker. Duh???? they do that everyday at the Toy stores here. I wonder when they are going to come off there high horse and figure out they have peaked and are not the primadonna they they think they are.
We have had allot of plus business from it.
I thought it would run out well before the original deadline and I think sometime by the end of August or first of September it will be all gone.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
The EPA's acronym for those flex fuel cars is "FFV" for "Flexible Fuel Vehicle".