cash for clunkers

[JackstandJohnny]

have any one looked into this?  the cash for clunkers legislation basically pays anywhere from 3500 - 4500$ for a trade in of old cars.  designed to promote purchases of a new car.  i must say its pretty cool.  should just about kill the used car sales industry as well.

any thoughts?

[RckyMtnTJ]

Not much to look into, is in the US.

[dubbleJs]

I think its a good idea if it'll get some of the rust buckets off the roads and help the struggling US car industry. Im in the UK and every car here is new within 10 years or less it seems, due to their strict yearly safety inspections. As long as the government is giving less $$ to the clunker car owners than the billions they are giving to these bloody car companies!! 

[JackstandJohnny]

Not much to look into, is in the US.

what the US does, Canada will doe. eventually, after they 'look' into it aka, see if its a hit or not, then they follow suite........

[Gearhead]

I'd like to see the the government put an end to the right hand drive shitboxes that keep turning up here from Asia. They are unsafe on our roads.

These vehicles are timed out rejects that are not legal where they originated due to age , somehow they get imported to north america and  land here , often bought up by unsuspecting young people that do not know better.

A friend of mine does vehicle inspections and  out of province inspections ,  he  refuses to certify these vehicles. Often the front end or steering need's work  ,    parts are VERY hard to get, some parts do not exist .

And .....

the next idiot , driving a righthand drive  piece of crap changes lanes   ( they can't see what they are doing ) ,   and nearly kills me while I'm riding my motorcycle  , is going to get hauled from behind the wheel  out of his death trap and beaten to a pulp.

[RckyMtnTJ]

what the US does, Canada will doe. eventually, after they 'look' into it aka, see if its a hit or not, then they follow suite........

I think its more likely that the Canadian government will mandate tougher regulations and controls much like Japan and the UK that will result in older cars coming off the road, whether for emissions & such or "safety".  I also think that only people who can afford and plan to buy a car anyways can make use of the Cash for Clunkers.   The people driving the junk heaps will continue to drive the junk heaps.  Don't get me wrong, it will probably stimulate the economy by convincing people who were on the fence about buying a new vehicle to actually follow through.  I also think dealerships will likely be less likely to offer incentives or dicker if they know people have the government rebate in the sights and are going to buy anyways.

[WagoneerXJ]

Not much to look into, is in the US.

No quite. My local Ford and Chev dealers are doin this. Friend of mine traded in her 93 ZJ Limited towards a new malibu or something and got extra money from that program. Her ZJ really was a POS too

[WhiteOut]

I'd like to see the the government put an end to the right hand drive shitboxes that keep turning up here from Asia. They are unsafe on our roads.

These vehicles are timed out rejects that are not legal where they originated due to age , somehow they get imported to north america and  land here , often bought up by unsuspecting young people that do not know better.

A friend of mine does vehicle inspections and  out of province inspections ,  he  refuses to certify these vehicles. Often the front end or steering need's work  ,    parts are VERY hard to get, some parts do not exist .

And .....

the next idiot , driving a righthand drive  piece of crap changes lanes   ( they can't see what they are doing ) ,   and nearly kills me while I'm riding my motorcycle  , is going to get hauled from behind the wheel  out of his death trap and beaten to a pulp.

Once the RHD cars hit 100k in Japan they cant be driven there.  I know a couple fo people with them and they are no more of a junker than a comparable LHD car.  So basically you say that due to age (100k) and RHD, these cars should be banned?  There are people in the club who have Jeeps that are in terrible shape and are complete asshat drivers, should the Jeep be banned?

There will be bad drivers of every vehicle, LHD trucks, car and the twit who bombs around on his bike at close to 200km/h.  You can call any vehicle a death trap since its probably 90% driver and 10% car, painting a whole group of people with the same brush just because of a few bad apple is pretty silly.

[JackstandJohnny]

angry Fraser! haha.

just to clarify;  insurance companies in Japan will not insure a vehicle with 100k or more on them. no matter of year.  even an 07 with that many kms is written off............. and thats why they get imported to Canada/US/AUstralia, cause we drive the bloody hell out of everything, and pay stupid cash for 'other countries junk' (literally).  however, as you can guess, japan and Canada are two different countries. we measure distance in hours travelled, and in countries like that, a 100km commute is ludicrous, and many people don't drive that in two weeks, where as we do it daily (some of us)


 as to the asshat drivers, no comment; seems to be a lot of them in this city, as well as drivers that just plain suck



as far as the dealer incentives, yea, they are starting to pop up,  personally i hope it puts all the ripoff/jackass wholesalers out of business..............

[Spinalguy]

I'd like to see the the government put an end to the right hand drive shitboxes that keep turning up here from Asia. They are unsafe on our roads.

These vehicles are timed out rejects that are not legal where they originated due to age , somehow they get imported to north America and  land here , often bought up by unsuspecting young people that do not know better.

A friend of mine does vehicle inspections and  out of province inspections ,  he  refuses to certify these vehicles. Often the front end or steering need's work  ,    parts are VERY hard to get, some parts do not exist .

And .....

the next idiot , driving a righthand drive  piece of crap changes lanes   ( they can't see what they are doing ) ,   and nearly kills me while I'm riding my motorcycle  , is going to get hauled from behind the wheel  out of his death trap and beaten to a pulp.

As always, stereotypes are everywhere. Its not the Righthand vehicle, its the DRIVER!

We own 2 RHDS vehicles. Both have been driven for almost 2 years now. 1 came in with 86,000 kms and the other 58,000kms.
Every part of these vehicles were in far superior shape than any North American vehicle that was 5-10 years newer than our 1990/91 vehicles.
Parts are easy to get, you just need to know where to look!

If you were to buy a used 15 year old NA vehicle, it too would need some basic things to pass an OOP inspection. So, to state that RHD vehicles are crap based on a 'friends' opinion is a tad ridiculous.

Here is why a RHD vehicle is so much better than a NA vehicle of same year or even 5 years newer. In Japan, the vehicles get safetied every year. The safety makes the owner replace everything on a checklist. i do mean everything! Every year the vehicle is brand new because of the depth of the safety. Unfortunately, when these vehicles reach near 75,000kms, the incredibly ridiculous maintenance schedule is no longer cost effective, so they go buy another newer one at the auction.

i will put my Skyline and Pajero up against any NA jeep of 1990/91 year model for a far safer vehicle.

Remember Jeff, its the driver not the RHD.

[Gearhead]

Oh I'm well aware of how many poor drivers there are.

Put some of them behind the wheel on the wrong side of the car and you've got a recipe for disaster.



Wrong side of the car ?

I believe strongly that RHD  cars belong on the left side of the road , as they were designed to be.  I certainly would not feel comfortable driving a LHD car on the left side of the road.

Let's say , for example , there was a rh drive crap box  following closely behind a bus , right behind that , a delivery truck , also following closely .  The car driver , being boxed in , wants to pull out and pass but can't do so safely because he's sitting on the wrong side of the car , frustrated , he yanks the wheel and pulls out anyway , narrowly missing a motorcyclist.  

See what I'm saying ,  RHD  on our roads ?  ,  regardless of the state of health of the vehicle is  just wrong and I know many who agree .  ( except for US postal workers on rural route )


Asshat driver  +  Right hand drive vehicle  =   demolition derby


Oh I should get the discussion back on topic  ..........

I like the cash for clunkers idea ,  If  we had a program such as this  , I'd trade in my Comanche .

[Spinalguy]

i too agree to cash for clunkers.

My point was you stating they were piles of crap. They are not and in better shape than LHD cars/trucks from same vintage

There are only 2 areas of driving that the RHD needs more care and attention.
1/left hand turns at lights
2/ 2 lane highway passing.

That's it. Other than those 2 scenarios, LHD and RHD are exactly the same.

[dunl]

How do you ensure that this "cash" is passed along to the consumer?

[dunl]

And how many places raise the price first?

I say they need to just lower their prices. Forget these "programs".

First we heard a few months back that dealers were "hoarding" their stock because no new stock would be arriving until after the factories get going again.

Then we start hearing stories that they are only going to be opening some factories for two weeks because.....surprise, surprise....no one is buying vehicles. They're not getting the point.

[JackstandJohnny]

], its a dealership rebate against a new car, which the dealership gets from teh gov't............. so its put against your new car.   now i don't know if thats how it will work. but that'd make the most sense. otherwise it offers no incentive to a consumer to buy 'new' \
but we know how our gov't works. they are kind of stupid when it comes to incentives. i mean they dole out billions to companies that file for bankruptcy, so giving a cash incentive to cash strapped people would make sense................ so they wont' do it