Hemmings reports that the ‘cash for clunkers’ bill that’s been bounced around is going to be included as part of an environmental bill called American Clean Energy and Security Act. Take a look at the Hemmings post for lots of links to info about the bill.
As an old car enthusiast, I stand against this kind fo thing because it takes old cars that may be desirable and sends them to the crusher. Even if they aren’t restorable, they may have valuable parts that could be used to restore another. But even without my special interest in keeping neat old cars on the road, the idea makes little sense to me. I won’t pretend that the following is the result of a lot of research and reading, it’s not. It’s just my thinking.
So what good can come from giving people a few thousand dollars (Hemmings says $4,500, but I don’t know what the final is) toward a new car if they junk their old?

• You get older, perhaps polluting, perhaps less efficient cars off the road
• You give the car companies and dealers a boost by spurring sales.

That’s it. Sounds good, though, doesn’t it? i don’t think it’s really going to deliver on those things and it creates other problems.
Stick it to the Poor
To illustrate what’s wrong, let me start with a couple of my recent clunkers.

• In 2000, I traded a 1988 Grand Caravan with 180,000+ miles on our late model (at the time) Honda Odyssey. It was rusty, rattly and worn, but the engine was only 35K old and the tranny only 80K. Still, I got only $500 on trade. I’m sure it went to auction and eventually someone who needed a cheap car ended up with a solid van for around $1,500, maybe less.
• In 2006 I got my new 2005 Mazda3. It replaced another rusty and worn car with 180K+ on the clock, a 1993 Escort. The car ran great, but the clutch went out. I gave it away to a mechanic who put a clutch in it ($100 or so in parts) and either drove it or sold it, I don’t know. Even if it was sold, I doubt anyone paid over $1,000 for it, not bad for decent transportation.

Both of those cars had decent life left in them and whoever bought them got solid transportation for under $1,500. For a poor family, good, cheap transportation is sorely needed.
If cash for clunkers had been in place, well, the extra $4,000 on trade for the Caravan may have put me in a new Odyssey instead of used and $4,500 for the Escort would have been phenomenal. That would have been more than 25% down on my Mazda. But, that would mean that those two families wouldn’t have had those sub-$2,000 cars available (the law says they must be crushed). Even if I hadn’t taken advantage of the cash for clunkers, someone would have likely given me substantially more than market price fore each, maybe over $2,000 each, so they could turn it into $4,500 off a new car.
I wonder what effect cash for clunkers will have on the cheap car market that the working poor relies on? If every old car is suddenly a $4,500 coupon toward a new one, the price of basic transportation is bound to go up.
But We’re Helping the Environment, Right?
But this is about the environment, getting old, inefficient polluters off the road. (My Escort was far from inefficient, averaging 34.6 MPG over the 10 years I owned it, but never mind that.) That is true, one of the purported benefits is getting old cars off the road and encouraging folks to get into more efficient and less polluting vehicles. Older cars may not meet current emissions laws and are more likely to be poorly maintained and therefore polluting more.
But, as I stated, the law as I understand it requires that the clunkers be destroyed. They cannot even be parted out to help keep other clunkers on the road. (Another hit to the poor who rely on cheap, junkyard replacement parts) Junkyard parts are a not insignificant part of keeping the environment clean. Giving these parts a new lease on life keeps them out of the landfill for a few more years.
What impact on the environment will disposing of hundreds of pounds of scrap metal and plastic, not to mention the fluids, have? Where is it all going to go?
It seems that we’re trading one environmental problem for another.
It’s Going to Help the Industry
Yes, for now. We’re creating an artificial environment where new cars are more affordable, when that environment is gone, then what? Folks who are going to look for a car, are going to take advantage of this program and buy before it’s over. Once it’s up, I bet sales tumble for a time. So we’re setting ourselves up for a short boom then another bust.
Have We Learned Nothing From the Housing crisis?
I heard Ben Stein sum up the mortgage crisis something like this. “Democrats wanted to give a mortgage to anyone with a pulse and Republicans wanted to let the banks do whatever they wanted with no regulation.” So, at the urging of the Democratic congress (I’m sure there were other reasons too), banks lowered their lending standards and the Republicans lowered oversight. Folks saw a house, a bank now willing to lend and a payment they could afford (now anyway), and took on more than they should have.
Now, we are hanging another big carrot of folks heads. A new car! Look, here’s $4.500 for your hooptie, just sign up for $12,000+ in debt. Doesn’t anyone else feel a little deja vu here? How many folks are going to get sucked into loans they cannot afford? At least now the banks are so scared to lend that maybe they’ll actually turn some of these people down.
But isn’t the message a little off? Times are tough, go borrow money to replace a car that was serving you fine until we waved a $4,500 check in your face.
I’m sure there are other reasons that people smarter than me can come up with, but cash for clunkers looks a lot like a program that will cost more than it gives us. It raises prices on the poor, hurts the environment as much as it helps it, provides only a temporary boost for the industry and sends the wrong message. The only people it is really good for are congressmen who get (again) to look like they’re doing something while actually making things worse. There’s that Deja Vu feeling again.
Not to mention the neat old cars that will be gone forever.

I got my annual Consumer Reports survey in the mail. You know the one where they ask about, mainly, issues with your cars over the last 12 months. In this one they also want to know about prescription eyeglasses and, as usual, I get to vote on the board of directors. I found it interesting for a couple of reasons.
First, I’m no longer a subscriber, haven’t been for a few years. Why am I still getting these things?
Second, they aren’t interested in my Odyssey anymore, no vehicles older than 2000, taking my 1999 Odyssey EX out of the picture. It seems to me that older vehicles can tell us a lot about an automaker’s commitment to quality, perhaps more so than new ones.
Third, inside was a special little slip marked ‘Important Note’. In it, CR basically asks me to pay for the privilege of submitting the survey. It’s expensive to send these out (especially when you’re sending it out to non-subscribers), so please send $6.75 with your survey to “help us continue this valuable service”. Pay to join and and pay to play?
Fourth, I find it a little bit of wishful thinking to expect the average car owner to remember everything that broke on their car over the last 12 months. I’m a bit over the top in my maintenance records and I still would have to go back and look. At least I have the records, most folks likely don’t keep that stuff. How many folks are going to get it right when they report?
Last, since I think that their auto issue was just published, the results from this survey won’t hit the stands until 2010. By the time it does, the data will be nearly a year old covering things that happened up to a year before that.
Add to that the confusing (what’s the difference between ‘top picks’ and ‘good bets’?) and vague (what is the real difference between a red dot and half a red dot?) nature of their data, and I think that CR, at least in terms of auto data, has out lived it’s usefulness. If I need a new blender, dishwasher or lawn mower, they are great, but not so good anymore for cars.
I’ve been participating in a new automotive research effort from True Delta for a couple of years now. They are doing several things, including real world fuel economy, simple price comparisons and why people choose not to buy a certain car, but the biggie is their reliability research. They have members submitting data on 43,000 cars with more joining all the time. How is it different than CR?
First, the survey comes via email, monthly. All I have to do is follow a link and enter in whatever the car went into the shop for last month. No shop time? Then most months I simply click a link to check in and I’m done. The monthly survey means it’s easier to remember for me (and therefore the data is better) and having it online makes it easy to do.
Second, they are still interested in older cars. I still enter info on my ’99 Odyssey, in fact they’re actively looking for more.
Third, if I participate I get full access to the results. Non-participants will pay, I won’t.
Fourth, I get fresh results every month. True Delta already has results on brand new models like the 2009 Jaguar XF that CR won’t have info on until next April.
Last, their goal so to provide quantifiable results, not vague colored dots. Their ratings show the average number of trips a car model has spent in the shop per year per 100 cars making it easy to compare two vehicles. For example, I’ll be replacing my Odyssey in a a couple of years, likely with a newer Odyssey. True Delta shows that a 2008 Odyssey has 32 trips to the shop per 100 cars while a 2008 Dodge Caravan has 99 and a 2008 Hyundia Entourage has 60. Valuable information. Turns out buying the Caravan almost guarantees a trip to the shop each year while only 1 in 3 Honda owners get to visit with their mechanic.
If you’ve ever been frustrated with the inability to find solid info on which cars are more reliable than others, I’d encourage you to join True Delta. It’s simple, free and you get access to valuable reliability information that you can’t get anywhere else (and no, I didn’t get anything for writing this, I just like what they are doing).
Consumer Reports’ data was great when it was all we had, but now it isn’t good enough. True Delta is better.

My Dad just replaced his old snow thrower at the beginning of the season. Too bad he didn’t wait, he could have had this awesome 40 year old, turbo-diesel, Mercedes Unimog snow thrower for the low Buy it Now price of $14,997. Check out the blades inside that thing. Clears 48″ of snow. That’s a whole lot of snow throwing awesomeness. The eBay listing says “I think this is the best one of these you will ever find.” That’s a safe bet, what are the odds of finding another one?
Too bad the auction ended earlier today, this is just what I needed to clear my 40′ driveway of the typical Columbus 3″ snowfall. Perfect.
Check out the seller’s web gallery for more photos, including one if it (or one like it) in action.
HT: Bring a Trailer.

What you see here is one of eight Hurst Rescue System 1 Gremlins built in the early 1970’s. I’ve always been a fan of Hurst cars, particularly the long string of Hurst Olds that were produced from 1968 to 1984. Of course, Hurst made a lot of aftermarket parts including custom wheels, the Hurst Hatch T-tops and of course their famous line of shifters. Dad’s 1965 Barracuda came with a Hurst shifter from the factory.
What many folks don’t know is that George Hurst is the inventor of the Hurst Rescue Tool, more commonly known as the jaws of life. It was created for help with racing crashes, but of course it’s use has spread far from the race track. The Hurst name continues to be associated with the jaws of life and with the shifters.
The Hurst Rescue System 1 Gremlin was the company’s fully equipped solution for tracks that wanted one of their Rescue Tools. It came fully equipped with all the rescue gear needed, including a stretcher. Good trick getting a stretcher in a Gremlin.

This Gremlin was sold in 1973 for about $11,000 to a rural Georgia county and served as their primary rescue vehicle until 2002. At that time, it was replaced with a larger truck that could hold all the equipment mandated by the state. The Gremlin remains in service as the backup vehicle and still carries all the original rescue equipment.
When I read over the Hurst history back in High School, I thought these little Gremlins with their bright orange stripes and push bars was really cool. To see one that has spent 35 years in active rescue duty and still bears the marks of use is simply awesome.
Images and story from gremlinx.com.