Brings a tear to your eye

Yep, what Ian said...........

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTYL-h5_hb4

 

:16suspect1:

NOW THAT'S A DUMBA$$

 

Did you see this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RTEs8LKUSk&feature=related

 

Ford wagon fights back http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDb7XN-L48o&NR=1

 

I look at this thread and just shake my head. With very tight jaws.
When are people going to get together and stop letting these Washington idiots tell us what to do. We need to take this country back.

 

Yeah....Really. Back when the program was in full swing I got a couple letters from either some state or county morons telling me how advantageous it would be for me to get rid of my Surburban and my 67 Bug for up to $600 each.

#1. A '53 Plymouth Suburban isn't a clunker, it's an antique.

#2. Get up to $600 for a clean '67 bug that gets 30mpg and buy some new pile of crap? I don't think so.

Back at that same time I was driving a '90 Corolla which was a far better car than my current '09 will ever be, but my bleeping insurance company totalled it for a couple broken tailights, a crunched trunklid and some scratches on the top of the bumper.
I wonder why they didn't send me a letter offering me up to $600 to send it to the crusher too? Maybe it was less than 20 yrs old at the time?

 

Not new

Sorry to say that this cash for clunkers idea is not new and will probably return with a new name in the future. In the 80s Delaware had a program where polluting companies would buy your car if it failed the emission test, or was pre- emission, to get them off the road. The result was that the companies got credits that basically allowed them to pollute more without getting them in trouble. A friend had a salvage yard where they were gathered, it was a sad sight. Cars from the 60s to the late 70s were crushed intact. History always repeats itself. Dave

 

they still do kinda...its called carbon trading. its the biggest bunch of BS i've ever seen!

hate to tell you this...if the eco-nuts had their druthers, our cars would be confiscated and crushed.

in thier happy little utopian society ...people that NEED cars have them and they are electric at that! the cities are "green zones" no internal combustion allowed! every one makes the same amount of money and has the same stuff that way, no one can feel bad or be wanting!
hmm...kinda makes me want to light a Prius on fire just thinking about it!

I have stated this here before ...if i hit the powerball i am buying a prius ...having the battery removed (so no one gets a shock) and we are taking sledgehammers to it!!! one hit for every long roof killed! ill make a long roof picnic out of it!! you're all invited!

but that hasn't happened....so in the meantime...here is a heartwarming pic to tide you over!

 

I want to say a few things about the cash for clunkers program. I work at a dealership and we clunked over 100 cars. Myself and one other person was in charge of killing the cars off. I also did most of the paper work and was the one that dealt with the scrap yard that came and got them. As there were a few decent cars that came in, most needed to be taken off the road anyway. I did kill a mid-late 80 RX-7 convert that was a little sad, but we had fun with it first. Lets just say that in a push war, an 80's VW van will win. Probably the nicest vehicle we had was a 92 GMC that was an old mans truck with 70K on it. I don't think anything had ever been sat in the bed. That truck was parted out before it left the lot. A lot of dealers either didn't read deep enough to see or just didn't want to deal with it. But we parted out a lot of the vehicle to an extent. We could not sell any drive train components. We did however sell body parts and wheels, and we sold them for a fraction of what a wrecking yard would sell them for. Now as far as the dealerships making a killing off of the program, that was not true. If it weren't for the fact that we parted them and cut the cats off of them, we would have only actually got what ever we scrapped them for, $200 ish a car. Then cut out how much they had to pay for the sodium silicat and the labor to kill the cars and the paper work. Then add the time sitting on the lot taking up space, the addition to theft that happened because of the cars sitting there, disposal of the oil, etc... The dealers didn't make anything off of the program. It was sad to see some of the vehicles disposed of, but it wasn't a bad program. It could have been done better for sure. I happen to work for a Toyota/Honda dealer and the GM dealer across the street only did eight cars. As much as I hate to go against my place of work, they should have added a few stipulations to help save the American auto makers.


I'm not going to lie though, the demo derbies we had out in the back lot where awesome!

 

Well............I suppose I should make a few comments about some of your statements, JMac. But, I had better not.

 

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine is, since I worked with it daily for several weeks and seen what came in first hand and not just pictures or rumors is that most of the cars that came in needed to be taken off the road.

 

i hate to re-open a horrible example here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzz4DjUnPJk

jmac, its crap like this that angers us....i understand its one video but i have heard of it happening more than a few places locally from friends who are still in the industry. luckily our local ford dealer tried to save what they could. for example a 1996 f150 with 40k on it.
elderly man wanted to clunk it for a new f150....they wouldnt let him...the dealership bought the truck off him for 5 grand and sold it in less than a week!
its the disposal of these vehicle in the manner that they did that showed the "true colors" behind this administration.
when the bill was first put out (this was changed, thanks in large part to sema action network) you were not allowed to pull so much as a lightbulb off of a clunker car. the original plan was that the dealer had to have an on-site crusher brought in and the cars crushed immediately. this of course was killed off by the libs because some dealers didnt have the space for an on-site crusher and there were environmental concerns.

that caprice in the video was a car that could have been donated to or sold cheaply to a family that really needed a better car.
if you HAD to do this program....there should be mileage and wear stipulations as well as the ability for a donation program.

 

A1,

A lot of dealers did that. We had a 35K orig. mile Blazer come in, we bought it and sold it instead of letting it go to the crusher. I know that originally, we were not allowed to take parts, that is true. But I don't think there was anyway that every dealer could have a crusher on site for MANY reasons. No room, hazardous to many people and the environment, not enough actual crushers to come to every dealer, etc... BUT, I am going to quit talking about it because it is a sore spot with a lot of people. Like I stated in my original post, there were many things that could have been done differently.

 

I had never seen that video, Ian. What a sad end to a great car. And there were thousands that met that same fate.
My sentiments were expressed nicely by the upset mechanic that had a job he didn't want.