US 'Cash for Clunkers' Scheme = Automotive Genocide

[James A]

A wonderful example of the American 'Cash for Clunkers' program at work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waj2KrKYTZo

To try to help the economy by boosting new car sales, the US government has decided to bring in a similar scheme to our 'scrappage' scheme, whereby people who turn in old cars get money off new ones. One of the rules of the scheme is that the dealers who take in the cars have to make their engines inoperative. The process is to drain all of its oil and replace it with a corrosive compound that results in catastrophic internal engine damage, rendering it useless, though this 'clunker' still puts up a fight with a lot of life left in it. So, by destroying a perfectly good luxury car - I mean clunker - it's going to help the economy in the long run?

Even though I don't like the Ford-era Volvos very much, it's plain disturbing that Americans are destroying decent cars like that to get just a little bit of money off a new car, mostly likely an SUV, or a Toyota Pious if they live in California. It's a pity that the guy with the fire extinguisher didn't cop all that hot oil/corrosive stuff in his face, although I can't help thinking that the clip was put up to show the public how wasteful the scheme is.

How far is America going to run backwards before it moves forward?

[Moosejaw]

Unbelievable!

I love the fact that they only have to trade it in for a car or truck that does 18mpg or more to qualify.

[James A]

I was alerted to what happens to the cars submitted under the 'CFC' scheme by someone I know on an US-based automotive community that I contribute Volvoish/British things to. Everyone who has replied to the post on the community so far is hopping mad about the scheme and the fact that the S80 had to die like that- the poor thing looked mint.

Surely, cars like that would be better used to mobilise less well-off people and those affected by disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, as another member touches upon:

I watch my neighbor, who is trying to get rid of her clunker. It's an '86 Buick Century that barely runs. It leaks, the paint is shot and it's front end is smashed up. She's trying to sell it for $450. She is a working single mom with three kids and going to school to try and better herself. As if the Buick was bad enough, she bought a used Pontiac Grand Prix that is in better shape, not a huge amount better though.

I talked with her about the scrappage program and it does her no good. She can't afford a car payment on what she brings in. So the program is useless to her and she's stuck with what is truly a clunker. The program doesn't do anything to help people that actually need it. It angers me to see her have to drive her kids around in a P.O.S. like she does when the government is taking something as nice as that Volvo and destroying it. It makes absolutely no sense.

[Laney760]

What gets me with these scrappage schemes is that I've been told by those in the know in Greenpeace that it's less environmentally damaging for me to run my Volvo diseasel to the end of it's days than it is to have a new eco friendly car produced for me......

[James A]

Originally Posted by Laneystrider

What gets me with these scrappage schemes is that I've been told by those in the know in Greenpeace that it's less environmentally damaging for me to run my Volvo diseasel to the end of it's days than it is to have a new eco friendly car produced for me......

It's a pity that so many other envirofreaks and the cretins in the NuLab government don't give a damn about this fact.

[dados]

what a set of d**ks,a good motor with years left in it ruined by a clown,in a land full of clowns.

[Guru]

You can actually hear that poor Volvo crying... very sad indeed.

Btw, wouldn't be more envirofriendly to just crush the engine, instead of burning so much fuel until it seizes?!

[willv70]

The Uk scrappage scheme is a load of B******s. Most people driving a 10yo car or older cant afford to buy the cheapest new car at the best of economic times!!

I just px'd a w reg(2000)mint Nissan primera sport with a geniune 56k on the clock,full history etc.It would have quallified for the scheme but I just could'nt see a dealer scrapping it somehow.Im sure it would have ended up with the underwriters just like all the cars over 3yrs old or with more than 30k clock do.........

I cant stand all this envoirment stuff and being made to feel guilty for owning a car..Im of an age where i can remember when all our homes were heated by coal and parafin .The gas we cooked with was coal gas.The electricity we used was produced by coal fired power stations.. i can just remember the end of coal fired steam trains. we ran our "un catted" 3.0L Capri's,xr4's on 4 star petrol...

My point? .........The air has never been cleaner!

[T240]

Originally Posted by Laneystrider

What gets me with these scrappage schemes is that I've been told by those in the know in Greenpeace that it's less environmentally damaging for me to run my Volvo diseasel to the end of it's days than it is to have a new eco friendly car produced for me......

Absoulytely right, Laney.

The classic car monthly and weeklies have been campaigning about this since the news of the scheme first emerged and petitions have been lodged to no avail.

My '88 (non-cat) 240 recently sailed through her MOT without advisories and from the emissions results runs as clean as a three year old car. It's not unique, we discussed it a little in the 200 series forum and some were running cleaner than mine!

It's a scam, much like the hooha over global warming, to which this is linked. (In the middle ages there was a long period where it was significantly warmer than it is now. Vineyards operated as far north as the Scottish Borders, and charcoal burning was a major industry; there was no catastrophy, no major sea level rise, nada, zilch!

We do contribute to global warming, but only by around 3 to 5 percent - even then it's mostly China, the US and Russia. But the fact is, a whole industry - now worth billions - has risen around the need to avert global warming, and how it is entirely a manmade phenomena, etc. so the ball is rollign, and mere mortals cannot change the course of it.

Cheers,

T

p.s. If anyone in power had the moral standing and guts to take note of industrial China for instance, where some towns and cities live in perpetual twilight and the average life expectancy is less than 40 (largely due to massive coal and steel industries which have no environmental safeguards), the large steel towns of the US which are little better than China, the largescale air pollution increase right across cities of the US in general since Bush junior repealed many of the environmentla safeguard laws, beginning in Texas when he was govenor (Dallas, once one of the cleanest cities in the world, is now one of the dirtiest), or Russia where industry is still a very large pollutor of sea and air, the damming of rivers is turning former green land to desert, and fish bearing inland seas (which supported large local industries) are drying up, or someone actually took the Brazilians to task over the slash and burn techniques still used in the rainforest which they still turn a blind eye to, then we would probably be concentrating more on general pollution matters than simply a part of the overall problem.

[CTCNetwork]

Hi,

Trust the americans to do the wrong thing, the wrong way and for the wrong reasons...

I'll stick to my V90 and enjoy warmer summers... LoL

Des. . .