Cash For Clunkers- I was unaware
 

A few friends of mine build Jeeps, one was at a yard earlier and filled me in on some info regarding the program. By the way, I was aware of the program, just not this part. He tells me that nearly every engine has been spray painted green and tagged, destroyed. I was a bit doubtful, so I checked YouTube. Well sure enough there's a few pages worth at least.

Incredible. When you think things couldn't possibly get dumber. This program is essentially going to force people to buy new, or newer vehicles depending whether they meet some standard. So what they are doing is putting a silica glass mix into these engines, many of them in fine running order, and intentionally ruining any vehicle (or at least it's engine) traded in on the program. I did see one video where a decent mid to late 90s Chevy Truck being was craned into a dumpster whole.

*some profanity in this one*:
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.... Four miles per gallon more, sure to fix everything!

Its insane, it really is- do the people running our countries have any idea of how stupid some of their schemes are? In the UK, people get upto £4000 off the cost of a new car if they trade in their old one. Trouble is if you buy the car on finance then you end up paying more than the normal full price because the car companies dont want to loose money on the trade in deal. That, and the price of used cars is going up as people are scrapping perfectly good cars in order to buy slightly more eco friendly new ones & get the £4k scrapage allowance, meaning fewer used cars for 1st time buyers and less well off people to buy.

Its enough to make your blood boil, it really is...

Found the dumpster one, there are many on YT-
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Neil what fate are the donor cars meeting there?

Didn't know the UK was involved in similar foolishness...

Oh yes, governent scrapage scheme is at work here too, has been for a while. Im not certain on the exact fate of the scrapped cars (the show room you buy the new car from may be responcible for collecting and scrapping the old car, or you may have to fo it yourself- Im not certain and havent looked into it that closely as I dont drive), but I believe they are just scrapped, so probably chucked on a large heap and crushed in due course, unless some jammy git scrapyeard owner resells the car or breaks it up for parts, depending on what its worth/ condition etc. It makes me sad really as its cheaper and more eco friendly to keep and older car running vs making a whole new car that only does a few mpg more- not like you're replacing a tractor with an all electric car, thats something way off in the distant future...

Neil: "not like you're replacing a tractor with an all electric car"

Well said, and exactly why I think these programs are a bit of a psychological experiment on one hand, and another excuse to just be wasteful, with or without any ulterior motives. This can't possibly help sell new American vehicles, that is pretty much an absolute.

my god that's so sad. what a waste. i know of people with 3+ cars (in a 2 car family) that trade in cars that barely run just so they can get $4500 on a new one. that's not nearly as bad as trading in cars like that last truck that was put in the dumpster. watching those videos actually turned my stomach.... what a waste.

i believe all european cars need to be built to be something like 85% recyclable, so they are used to make new cars at the end of their life rather than us americans who just toss 'em in a landfill or junkyard.

I have a few friends that work at car lots, They are waiting to get paid for them before they start blowing them up, but thats the deal, put the silica in them and run them till they pop. I was first under the impression that none of it could be salvaged, but they say at least the body parts can be parted out. It ticks me off, if taxpayers are are footing the bill, the hard working people that can't afford a new car should at least be able to fix theirs up with these parts. And redshift I work with 3 people that all traded their old ones in (an astro van, a cherokee, and a ford pickup) on new malibu's, so chevy is getting a little bit of it.

Absolutely! Now people who normally try to be frugal are going to have fewer options to fix up the old horse. Need an engine, you'll be shelling out crate rebuild dollars. This is bass ackwards, even for us. If they had like 10 more minutes to think things through they would have at least come up with a better plan than dumpsters and needless destruction. This was obviously a little footnote decision made in haste, but I need not mention any patterns concerning such things...

Good points ClodMaxx. Trading in total heaps to get a cheap(er) new car is great, that the whole idea of the scheme, but its morons who''ll trade in their perfectly fine and excellent condition pickups (see above) in order to save a few grand on a useless city car who should be shot. If you buy a 4x4 to drive around town in (Chelsea tractor, or so the expression goes- soccer moms in the US?) then thats daft to start with, its just the mentallity that bigger is better/ safer; if everyone living in a city or town drove smaller cars, then they'd still all be equally safe relatively speaking. But those ejjits with more $ than sense will then go along with the clunkers scheme and get rid of a well looked after vehicel becuase they think they're doing something posistive for the enviroment- do as the government says cos they must be right after all... :no:

The other point about being 85% recyclable is true to an extent, but thats only really newer cars less than about 10 years old or so, but if your old daily run about runs fine and is cheap to maintain, why scrap it? Brussels & the EU parliament have far too much say in what we can and cant do, and the targets that they set are often nearly impossible to meet, especially reducing emmissions by like 70% in a few decades time- that kind of change would need 99% of older being scrapped and swapped for bloody Geewizzes! God help us... anyone got a .50 cal I can borrow, got to scare a few Sprouts....

What a waste... I like death by redlining. or burnout.. or both.

pretty pathetic

Here is the worst part, the US spent 3 billion on this program to save a whopping 350 million in gas total over the life of the new cars given best case scenario.

Then what really gets to me is that these "clunkers" could have been donated to charitable organizations for people who cannot afford transportation. I am doing some volunteer work with a group that helps previously homeless people get back into the job market and I look at these people and think damn, they could have been given these vehicles instead of trashing them. The vehicles also could have been donated to High Schools, Colleges, and Universities for their auto programs as well. Really the possibilities are endless and anything would have been better than the scrapyard.

This program is by far one of the most piss poor piles of crap I have seen from the government yet. Of course everything our government has done this year to "stimulate" the economy has been piss poor at best.

What gets me is that I don't drive new cars I have a 78' Elcamino, 95" Taurus and a 01' Maxima. They are all paid for and have been for years. I can't afford a payment on a new car. Recently my Radiator split at the seam for the lower rad hose tank. I had about 5 people said "you could get 4K for that car", What difference does it make I ain't paying payments on a new car (besides both the drivers get better than the 18mpg required, near 30 on the hwy). I maintain my cars and have always. It's cheaper to fix things as they break (or before) then it is to make a payment every month. Even if I had an auto trans failure, which is the only thing I don't work on, paying $2500 to get it fixed I still come out cheaper than paying payments.

The government has no business buying cars to destroy they can't get their poop in a group on anything else, especially the way things are.

Jeff

That IS disturbing. Like what has been said, there are soo many things they could do with the "clunkers" than just destroy/crush them... I drive a '95 Bonneville with 196K on the original 3800 V6 and transmission. I get 25/20 highway/city mileage. Not to shabby for a 15+ year old car...and I'm not a "feather foot" either. I wont be trading it in until it clunks out on its own- and I don't see that happening any time soon.

BB16, as much as I'm not a fan of internal combustion, at least give them an honorable death!

Tex, one of my lousier jobs year ago was at a salvage/auction yard. The yard dealt with donor vehicles for the NKF, and the garbage that came in, and HAD to sell, at any price. I am talking the most rotted out carcasses of cars. People just unloaded junk, naturally for a write off. But as useless as that program was/is, it makes a thousand times more sense than the Clunkers scheme.

Stranger than fiction.

What's the matter with you! Shhh it'll hear you!

I'm with you I as one comedian put it till the wheels fall off. Then I will fix that and keep driving it until a deal comes along that I cannot pass up.

Jeff

Exactly. Unless it needs a new drivetrain, any repair is going to cost way less than a new vehicle. I'm shooting for 20 years out of this car. Only 5 left! :mdr:

Hell even a new drivetrain you can get for less than the cost of a decent used car. Luckily my Taurus was one of the most widely produced cars in the US so I have quite a while before I need to trade up. The Nissian is more expensive to fix (don't know why I let the Wife talk me into buying it, Have to use premimum, or it sounds like someone has a cofee can full of pennies under the hood). But I have fixed all the problems except the MAF because I have to take it to the dealership in order to have the ECU reflashed for the new MAF, a waste of $100.

Jeff

And to bot ALOT of dealerships are still waiting for their money! The Gov't changed the forms they neede to fill out midstream and didn't tell the dealers. My step-brother has an audio shop that does alot of alarms and remote starts for the local dealers and he's out almost 20k because the dealers wrote him bad checks. He called them and they don't have the money from the Gov't to cover the checks. There some franchised multi brand dealerships going under due to the money that they don't have to pay the manufacturer for the cars they sold. It was all a "knee jerk" reaction, let's see what this does to car sales for the next 6-12 months... I bet the dealers/manufacturers will feel a big squeeze before it's all over...

My car only has one ... "problem" atm- If I revv it too high, like say merging onto the highway, the crank sensor (2 months old :smile:) will lose position and my traction control shuts off..... :lol: It still accelerates and runs perfectly afterwards, but no TC until I restart the engine- which I will sometimes do by putting it in neutral at 75mph+ and restarting it. :neutral:

Really disappointing to see the government do this. A freaking Mazda truck? Don't those things get great mileage?
Ranting follows:
Whats even more disturbing is people trading in cars they OWN for a few saved dollars on gas that will never cover the DEBT they are buying with their new car.
Successful program? Typical liberal media. Why not say "look how fast the government can spend the money they're taking out of your pay check!"
Has anyone ever calculated exactly how much of what you make goes to the government? Including property taxes, sales taxes, gas/road taxes, income taxes...whether it be state or federal.
Maybe when I get my plane built I'll fly up to Alaska, as far away from this government as I can get yet still have some footing on part of the USA that doesn't getting trampled on much. Because of its population density, I doubt it will ever be a liberal state, at least not in my lifetime.


I did see a bumper sticker on someones truck at my work place that said "It may be a clunker, but it's MY clunker!" At least someone still has a head on strait.

We don't need no stinking traction control! Well at least here in Texas you don't. I have only used it when traveling and driving rentals in the snow.

Jeff

Jeff, you need to clean the MAF with a few drops of high solvent. Contact cleaner is best, just barely drip it on, then gently knock off the contaminants. Just do not use compressed air, unless at very low pressure to avoid damging the filaments.

There is going to be some wicked backlash, more stuff I had not considered. Man....

Willy, about the Mazda, seems like the best example as they are efficient and well made, and it did not need to die.

Great points from all so far...

Done it, used the CRC MAF cleaner and this one uses a plate and a channel with a post. I reset the EEC, and the MIL came back on after about 200 miles. I still get "Lean bank number 1". Can't check fuel pressure because Nissian decided that they don't need a schrader valve, (or a fuel filter) but that's the only check I haven't made.

A dirty MAF should cause the car to run rich. The Maxima forum is not too much help, I can't even find out what kind of output the Maf has. Don't know if it's an analog signal like the Fords or a PWM signal like Chevy uses, I haven'e found any checks for it. I may just pull the injectors and clean them on the injector cleaning and test stand (it's a Star 8 injector stand). The plugs look like it's running pretty good, a little lean but no pits on the insulator or anything like that.

Jeff

Ha- don't you love standards... err no. And for trying and looking into cleaning the MAF, good man :yes:

Like I said I fix everything on my cars. I have always had clunkers and with my Dad being an aircraft mechanic (when I was a kid), I have a strong mechanical background, and an AAS in electronics.

I haven't really messed with the Maxima in a while (Wifes car) it's been driving great and it will stomp my car, I started to add a rearmount turbo on the Taurus, but The AXOD is weak and has 117K, when I put a new one in there along with a shift kit (they make'em) and the headgaskets are replaced when they go out I'll go for it. Would really like a standard but they only came in the SHO and I do not want to deal with that conversion.

Jeff

Well it's funny you should mention a SHO, my buddy, same one who does Jeeps, has a SHO for sale. '95, painted Honda electric blue, dyno'd at high 200s or low 300ish , can't remember. It is a neck snapper, and handling is telepathic... PM for price!

Well I got out of the Supercoupe because of the lack of available parts (and had a child on the way). None of the SC engine parts are the same as the LX. Kinda the same way with the SHO the Yamaha engine is getting harder to get parts for (they use the same DIS module for the SHO and SC). My friend had one (SHO) that was a real screamer and was one of the first in the 250 WHP.

I love the SC nothing like a car that will do 140 bone stock (aero limited at that level) and I loved the sound of the Roots blower. I used to really freak people out since I had an aluminum air intake with 76mm MAF and 75mm TB and a modified SC it would really scream. Then came time for the EEC tuner and cam, head work I did myself (20-25cfm gain across the board). 10% overdrive jackshaft pulley using a 5% SC pulley I made 16psi. It ran HARD, but after a short time the headgasket let go again and I got rid of it.

Jeff

this is what we gotta do:

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^ I gotta get me one of those...

Top Gear is the best :yes:

I like the concept, but I have a problem with the wasted space inside the camper.

If we could just fill them with 'policymakers', it would be just.. so much more satisfying.

We could call the program "Splat for Morons"

I think the thing that pisses me off the most if that everyone "in the know" these days is "going green". What a bunch of squirrel dicks. The unwashed masses have no idea what goes into recycling, the amount of energy needed, and the waste by-products. Let alone what happens to the stuff they throw away to the landfill. So they buy hybrid cars (what a joke there) and pay a premium for them on top of the fact they will never get 15 yrs out of the batteries (and the 1000 times more complex electronics that will break*, etc) and somehow think they are saving the environment? People are throwing away usable stuff at an accelerated rate so that they can pop the wad on the latest "green" crap the bandwagon is touting. What a bunch of fools....

Heres a revolutionary idea, f**k the environment and spend your time trying to save your money. I guarantee you will make less pollution if you do not spend every dollar you make. Buy in bulk, save money and also purchase less packaging material in the process. The less packaging the less pollution, pretty simple huh! I see stuff for sale everywhere and can't help but think that the package costs more than the product inside. Take cereal, I buy the plastic bag brand, no box and I get twice the amount of the stuff for less than the box brand, which has half the amount of product in it... So I save money, and save the environment cause there is no box to toss. Wow, I am up at genius level here (sarcasm).

You can do the same with all kinds of stuff, reuse what you can and you will make a much bigger impact than trying to recycle. Plus you save money, all you have to do is think (seems pretty hard for the liberals). Wow, saving money sounds good... Time and motion studies have been around for decades, you can apply this stuff to everything you do, less waste, less time wasted, less money wasted, etc. I could go on all night about this crap.

If you want you can take me for example, I own my house outright, no car notes, and I have about 17 months till I own my business outright, and I am 29. I have not blown my money on cds, or cokes, or using a whole roll of tp to wipe my ass everytime I drop trou. Be careful and pay attention and you can save money like it is going out of style (too late, saving money is out of style, and it is sure not "green"). This is the crap they should teach those snot nosed brats in HS, but they are too worried about putting OBAma on tv and wasting their time with his "pearls of wisdom". Who the hell cares what he has to say? Has he fixed the economy yet? Has he done anything he "promised" to? Jesus, the guy is not even a good public speaker. Hum, uh, duh, wha, blah, that is all I here, and the damn democraps have to clap and cheer after every word, shut up and let the man stammer his way thru another prepared speech. I have to turn the crap off, I just can't stand listening to the BS and lies. Its like they held a contest to find people to replace the Bush administration that were more full of it?

As far as shit-canning good vehicles goes, well what do you expect from the government? The same waste of space people that you laughed at is school went on to work for the government, and now some of them get to make all of the decisions, yay! Best thing you can do is hold everyone around you, including yourself, to a higher standard. Teach your kids what is wrong and show them what dumb people look like. And stop paying your taxes! And when they come for your stuff, make sure you give them the ammo first, one at a time.

Much more stupidity and everyone will be sorry they did not act sooner...

* if you think that the japanese/chinese can make electronic stuff that lasts forever, just look at the xbox, or anything that you get these days, 45% mortality rate is considered "normal" - WTF?

Linc, please continue... :yes: :great:

I would have quoted you James, but you didn't leave me much to go on....

Yes, OB without his teleprompter is possibly worse than his predecessor with one.

Great points you made, I also own everything I have, aside from renting. I don't want to be anchored by a home, period. Things are way too unpredictable, if things were different I would consider buying a handyman special. I don't see that happening... well ever honestly.

I know it's probably funny that I was in the dark about the details of the CfC idiocy. But that is because I avoid all the major spin outlets.

And none of this surprises me, I just wish it would surprise more consumer zombies.

But they create more black holes every day, seems it's the only thing they're adept at...

Sorry my soap box broke... Guess all of that cheap cereal is going to my ass...

I figured someone would enjoy my ranting...

I do feel better for getting that off my chest. Maybe I should run for pres? Only issue is the foreign national part... maybe I can get that changed, but I would be running again the "Governator" then. Oh well.

Yes, and anyone else...

The whole cash for clunkers thing makes me want to hurl, but I did enjoy that round of "darts". :yes:

Gotta watch out for black holes, hehehehe. Maybe you could push Steven Hawkins in first? I am going to hell for that one! I think that they should put him in the next Dr Who movie, as one of the Darlects (sp?), hearing their "Exterminate, Exterminate" in his robo-voice would be funny!

(that last part was mainly for the old british fools on this forum, the US was not inflicted with the original Dr Who and its terrible sets and props.)

As far as not paying much attention to the consumer crap, might be a good idea. I was trying to get changed in the bedroom and the wife was watching the vma awards. I stopped to listen to Russel Brand (what a wanker but sometimes funny) and was appalled to see the lack of any sort of musical talent. I can remember when MTV was pushing music hard, now it is all about selling the latest multicultural pop band (not really a band without some sort of musical instrument?) and their various teen attracting products such as watches, oversized pants and hair products... Plus all of those "entertainers" are all liberal f**k sticks that have no idea that the WMCA (not to be confused with the YMCA which is full of queers dressed as indians and construction workers) are the ones paying for all of their so called success. Do they think that the communist/socialists would let them make millions and prance around dressed like runway models? Hell no. The entertainment industry cracks me up (an pisses me off) with their seemingly unending amount of short-sightedness (sounds like the gov't) and general lack of ability to see the big picture. If the economy craps out, their livelihoods will be the first to be cut back on. No cable, no going to movies, no buying music... They should be pushing thinking about the future.

Old Brand was saying how great the UK was cause they have nationalized health... He did miss the out the fact that the UK has 17% "sales" tax (actually called VAT - value added tax, what a great name) and that 52% of the UK population work for the gov't. Missed the tv taxes, road taxes, car taxes, red undies on wednesday tax, etc. He just glossed over all of that, not that it has any relevance, none at all (more sarcasm).

Then Kanye West interrupted some white chic accepting an award to "holla" at Beyonce and tell her how gangsta she is (or something like that). Showing his true colors there, but he will still want to tell us, the unimportant non celebrities, how to vote when he does not even have the common courtesy to wait his turn... What a jackass, and your kids worship the ground he walks on, keep that in mind.

(apparently I fixed the soap box, jammed some of those bag cereal packages under it!)