jon@dakota-truck.net wrote:
>
> I believe the dealership provides the credit to the customer and
> gets reimbursed by the gov't program. I wonder if it would be
> possible for someone to walk in there and offer the dealership the
> $4500 (or $5K to make it worth their while) instead. That covers the
> dealer's cost, so the only question would be if the paperwork could be
> stopped.
If the dealership fails to destroy the engine, they get penalized
$15,000 per vehicle. I guess if you put your offer up to $20k they
might be willing to talk.
The idea was that vehicles worth more than $4500 wouldn't be put in this
program, as they would be worth more in trade-in value. I don't get how
some of these are ending up there. I would have thought that the
dealerships would want to look up the value, since they could make money
off of re-selling the more valuable vehicles. Seems like people are
just getting lazy and falling for the promise of free government money.
Or even more disturbing, they're falling for the propaganda of how much
they're helping the environment by having their old "clunker" euthanized.
> Does anyone know what happens to these vehicles after the engine is
> destroyed?
They go to scrap yards. A lot of them have already had a lot of the
eBay sellable stuff pulled off by the owners, so the scrapyards aren't
expecting to get much off of them.
> Is there anything to stop someone from buying
> this vehicle and dropping a new engine in it? Or does the VIN
> basically get banished to never-never land?
I heard the VIN gets blacklisted. No idea if it would be possible to
get a salvage title. Remember the whole point of this program (other
than kick-starting sales of new cars) was to get the "old, evil gas
guzzlers" off the road. With a limit of max 18 MPG it's pretty squarely
aimed at all the SUVs and trucks that were sold during the 90's.
Jalopnik has been covering the whole thing pretty well.
http://jalopnik.com/5324812/cash-for-clunkers-worthless-for-most-auto-recyclers
http://jalopnik.com/5327580/video-how-to-disable-a-cash-for-clunkers-car
-- Jason Bleazard http://drazaelb.blogspot.com Burlington, Ontario his: '95 Dakota Sport 4x4, 3.9 V6, 5spd, Reg. Cab, white hers: '01 Dakota Sport 4x4, 4.7 V8, Auto, Quad Cab, black
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