Good News! Cash for Clunkers bill

If you have the money to piss away and don't care, great, but the way they're printing money before long toilet paper is going to have a higher face value to it,

my mom who is 91yo reminds me that in the late 20's in europe toilet paper did have a higher face value then money and it took a bushel basket of paper bills to buy a loaf of bread, yes she does say they used money for toilet paper and it is going to happen. so but real stuff with cash now.

 

for those who care our owner will be meeting with ohio senator sherrod brown on friday for lunch to talk about the scrappge bill. we are against it and will try to get this piont across to him on friday

 

Big difference in the battery in my flashlight or even my clunker. They give me a little bag and collect the flashlight batteries once a year or so, for recycling they say. The clunker lead acid car batteries, I sold a bunch last summer. 13 cents a pound if I remember right. I usually try to fill up the dry ones before I go. I always keep a couple handy because they're good for $5 or $10 off a new one.


I really couldn't find any good, specific info on recycling the nickel metal hydride or lithium ion rechargable hybrid batteries. They can be recycled but it's not as easy as lead-acid types. They claim they're less toxic and Toyota and Honda claim to have never had to replace one (yet). What that tells me is it's going to be left up to automotive recyclers to figure out in 5 or 10 years. Which means that until worn out ones become common, they won't be that easy to recycle.

I'm going to bow out on that point, because we're so far off topic we may as well be discussing dryer sheets at this point. (which are also soon to be worth more than dollar bills!)

 

Where are the rods of the future going to come from if 25 year old and newer stuff is largely wiped out? We will have screwed the rodders of the future. It's bad enough that the private businesses crush old cars for scrap tonnage without getting the gummint's nose in this. When you go to bed at night pray for low metal prices so some of those cars will stay in sheds and garages for our grandkids and great grandkids to find and rod. Stude Trucks: These things generally start with voluntary or optional but never stay that way. Remember mandatory unpaid caretaker leave for employees several years back? Guess what? It morphed into mandatory PAID leave in many States. Same thing could easily happen in this "optional" program.

 

actually they have to deal with what to do with the batteries now.....i work in a collision shop and i can say ive seen 4 prius' that have totaled because the battery was damaged in a wreck.......as for recycling the batteries.....id LOVE to watch someone do it themself! instant barbecue....as for my personal batteries....they have drop offs at the osh(for small stuff) and hust bros.(car batteries) here........
really what i think theyre doing is just getting rid of the gass guzzlers so carbon offsets can be made and sold

 

Where is the money coming from? Tax dollars, of course. Where do tax dollars come from? From you and me, of course. So you and I are going to subsidize someone who can afford a new car to the tune of up to $4,500? No thanks.

 

I see your point and can agree with that to a degree for sure. But, fact is, that is just standard industry practice for pretty much any product in any country. Manufactures make and then get you to buy their stuff and then it is your problem to get rid of it - paint, refrigerators, plasma TV's, everything good and bad.

The the days of easy solutions to our problems are probably over. Just too many people making big scale problems to be solved by doing things the easy way. It may take a bit more to recycle them, I don't know and wouldn't doubt it. But, for heavens sake a battery that can actually power a car for 5-10 years before needing replacement. Man, that is an achievement right there that we couldn't say 10 years ago. Maybe part of our problems is we don't want to see the glass half full anymore. It is always half empty so may as well just drink it all up asap so I get my fair share instead conserving and looking for ways to do more with less. Sometimes I think more than anything, we all just need a positive attitude adjustment and stop blaming everyone else for our problems and hoping they will just magically go away on thier own some how.

Hell, the mere fact that we are debating how hard it is to deal with and recycle the batteries instead of whether we just toss them in the river or not is a major plus. If the biggest issue with hybrids is how difficult it will be to recycle the batteries, I think that is pretty good.

At least people are trying to do something to make things better and as far as I can tell, this legislation is a voluntary program and will have no impact on traditional hot rodding. So, so far, seems possibly ok to me.

 

Looks like the NSRA rolling 30 year rule thingy just worked itself out.

 

Ok, fine, probably will need to pony up $10K further down the road then if that is your choice. How many times does ignoring a problem and doing nothing actually end up with solving the problem or making it better? Or do you just want others to pay and not yourself and then you get the free ride? I hate taxes as much as anyone. Personally, I know a couple of useless government programs on the other side of the planet we could cut out and get plenty of cash to fund this program and have a bunch left over. I would rather see that.

Oops, just fell in my own trap. Come to think of it, sometimes the government creates problems where none really exist and then wastes unimaginable amounts of money trying to solve it, all the while just making the problem far worse. Ok, we sure have seen the proof of that over the last 8 years, and still seeing it to this day unfortunately. Maybe you are right and they will just F this all up like a lot of other things we have seen out of them.

 

I'd say that ninety percent of the guys who jumped off the handle in the posts above didn't read the article.

One section:

Clunkers eligible for the program must get 18 miles per gallon, or less, in combined city and highway driving. The subsidy ends up benefiting more owners of light trucks, SUVs and mini-vans more than it would owners of regular old passenger cars, auto experts say.

A $3,500 subsidy can be used toward purchasing cars and vans that are more fuel efficient than the older clunkers by four miles per gallon. A $4,500 subsidy can be used toward purchasing cars and vans that are more fuel efficient than older cars by 10 miles per gallon.

However, cars that have not been insured for the past year or those that are older than 25 years are not eligible to be traded in for vouchers.

That makes my daily driver 1988 Deville just elegable as it is rated at 18 mpg. There are damned few cars that I would be interested in rated at 28 or better though.

I wrote my Senators that I thought that was a feel good farce that had little or no merrit and I still feel that way. I think that the main impact with this will be with fleet operations that have a ton of vans or pickups out there that are the right age to swap in. Right now it would take a damned fool to think he would come out ahead by trading off a 20 year old paid for car for the payment he would have to put out on anything new just to say that he had gotten a 4500 rebate for doing it. Now for uncle Joe who swaps his car in for a new one every fifteen years this is probably a good deal.

I bought my 88 Deville for 300 off Craigslist and it pulls 25 or so on the highway and I don't owe any payments which leaves that money for spending on my hotrods if I so choose. That made a hell of a difference from my 71 GMC that may pull 12 mpg on a good day with a tailwind.

 

These kind of "programs" are universal and very much proposed all over the world, in europe what they like to emulate is the "program" that´s currently in place in Germany. From what I gather, the ones they´re looking to implement over in the US also draw their "inspiration" from that.
These "programs" are nothing but smokescreens to benefit nobody but the auto manufacturers and dealership networks in the name of the almighty environment.
For instance, the autos that are targeted in the proposals discussed in this thread. I bet the bulk of the vehicles that supposedly get that kind of gas mileage and "fill the bill" are somebody´s 2nd or 3rd vehicles. Considering the useage they supposedly see annually, how much mileage would You need to put on the proposed "new" vehicle (with the supposedly better gas mileage) to offset the "recycling" of the (perfectly useable as-is) current vehicle into the new and supposedly "eco-friendly" -one when You factor in the total expenditure of natural resources that goes into the manufacture of the latter. Make no mistake about it, crushing all those hulks, hauling them halfway across God´s creation to the refinery, heating up that furnace, not to mention all the digging, mining, refining, manufacturing and transport of all those 20,000 -odd components that make up a new automobile from all the various subcontractors from all over the said "creation" is gonna take some serious dinosaur bones, if in fact that is the concern here as it seems by the "advocates" of these "programs"...
I always thought the "use and throw away" -mentality was the farthest thing from "eco-friendly", and in that respect, I think the only thing "eco-friendly" out there is the individual who holds on to their whatever they have and take good care of it for as long as they can with what they have, but then I was never a politician so what the hell do I know...

 

Don't confuse cars with liberal agendas. The government has no business in private enterprise. I know in Berkley that's not the sentiment, but in the heartland of America that's how it works. I don't need the government spending my money on someone else's car, they need to stay out of our lives - no big brother here - people need to fix there own problems not depend on teh government to save them.

 

Not yet, anyway.

 

Berkeley, California says a lot about his points. Take that from there.

I already drive a 16-year-old Diesel pickup that will last at the very least, another 16-20 years and 200K miles. I can make my own fuel, if it gets to that point. THAT is being enviro-friendly. Not some feel-good (for the gub'mint) measure that says "we're doing something", even though that something isn't worth the paper the bill is printed on. Keep in mind, "voluntary" soon becomes "mandatory" when the Feds feel that not enough "volunteers" are participating in their little show.

 

Try since the days of FDR. He was the king of that.

 

amen!

 

Still sad as I said in my last post.Keep giving the government and insurance companies more rights.

 

Very well made point - I am Canadian, but as goes the U.S., usually goes Canada in these matters.

I think I should get a credit from the government for recycling and reusing instead of being made to feel like a nasty polluter for buying a 8 year old car and keeping it going for another 4 years (and onward). I don't have car payments, I take pride in fixing my own stuff and the car I drive gets 35+ miles to the gallon and passes the stupid bi-annual emissions tests with numbers better than some new cars. I cannot afford a new car, don't want a new car, don't want to get caught up in payments and don't want to use all the energy required to build a new one when I can find a good used car and drive it until it makes more sense to find another one.

 

Hot rodders the ultimate recyclers!!! Maybe we should get the government to pay us for recycling old steel into drivable cars.

 

I'm from the government and I'm here to help......................

 

So does this mean all the ghetto cruisers in my neighborhood are going to be replaced with Prius's (Prii?) with 20" wheels? I'll just sit back and wait for the repo's to roll in after all the people who could only afford gas guzzling beaters decide they need a new car. This time next year the auctions will be flush with cars.

 

My 98 suburban gets 17.5 city 22.5 hwy with the A/C blasting. I can haul anything with it. Its safe and comfortable. A 44 gallon gas tank gets 750+ miles.
The more equal among us said if we cant afford the price of gas we should get something thats better on gas. Thats a payment also. In this spiraling economy I wouldnt take on payments for ANYTHING. I'm fairly secure in a good job and I wouldnt do that. The gov. dosent belong anywhere near the private sector. Theyre job is to protect us from forigen threats and pass viable laws. We need new crooks.

 

Thanks, will do. But just remind me, OK, isn't that where all the great thinkers come from?

 

Hey, here is a noble thought... oil companies will build brand new refineries right here in the US.......

.....After 2012....

 

Uhhh. No. Not exactly. ...just the majority of the libral commie bastard great thinkers came from there. (doing my best Archie Bunker) The rest of the millions of truely great thinkers came from way far away from there.

Keep thinking the way you are and all you'll have for enjoyment is when Uncle Sam tells you you can pretend to drive the toy truck in your avatar...via the RFID chip you allowed him to implant because "it was for the good of greater man"....or easier to pay for the bean sprouts and hummus that you can only buy on Tuesdays from 8 to 10.

Follow the money and WAKE UP!

 

Please, "OK" as in "Oklahoma". "libral"? what's that? I wish the money our tax dollars went to your education was a little more effective. Commies, ooh, scary....

Man, some of you guys seem to have some pretty serious paranoia and bitterness. Maybe you need to lay off the Fox news a little and just relax and work on your cars- or at least cut back on the caffeine a little. The whole world isn't out to destroy you and take all your toys away despite what the drug addict radio talk show hosts might say.

 

"Perfecting the fine art of More Cost, Less Performance since 1965."

Sounds like a government program to me. <!-- / sig --><!-- edit note -->

 

Whats wrong with folks from Oklahoma? Some of them may take issue with that comment. Libral is a roman pound, you'll have to tap into your deep thinking neighbors to help you out with that one since it went right over your head....Archie Bunker commonly misused words trying to impress or berate (depending in the situation) folks....so it all was a little tongue in cheek. You didn't get it.

Paranoid and bitter? No. Sick and tired of the additional restrictions on freedom and never ending increases in taxation while being continually asked to carry and coddle the dead weight of society. Note that I'm from the Socialist Republic of New York.....only a short step behind the Communist State of California. .....and the list of states worth moving to is getting shorter by the minute.

....back to the hot rod show.....

 

PASS THE POPCORN PLEASE!

 

Very true.This is our fine government at work,as usual,not using their heads,but thinking with their wallets.