Cash for Clunkers Ends August 24th

The Obama administration announced the end of the popular $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program this Monday. The program is expected to wind down Monday at 8:00 pm E.S.T. If you are a buyer interested in a $3500 or $4500 rebate for your car, you will need to get down to a dealership this weekend to take adavantage of the CARS or Cash for Clunkers program.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood calls the program a “lifeline” for the auto industry, although there are economists that disagree. One of the arguments against the Cash for Clunkers program is that “These people were intending to buy new cars anyways” and now that there is a rush of new cars on the roads, the auto industry should expect a sharp decline of new car sales for the next several months. All the buyers they might have had several months ago jumped on board the Cash for Clunkers program! The “now or later” policy might just come back with a whiplash effect.

Still, it is hard to deny the current benefit to the economy with the sales of 457,000 vehicles over $1.9 billion incentives.

John McEleney, chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association, believes the $3 billion will be liquidated through after all the paperwork is handed in. He expressed concerns about dealerships that had yet to turn in their Cash for Clunkers vouchers, but with the Monday deadline cutting off further sales, this gives dealers time to handle the remaining $1.1 billion vouchers that are still floating around out there.

Now that the public knows there is a deadline, the fear of a rush to dealerships on this Monday is sweeping over the minds of dealers. Sure, sales are good, but there is nothing worse than a computer system crashing because it cannot handle the spike of panic sales. Websites will lock up as dealerships try to turn their vouchers in.

President Obama said during an interview this Thursday that the program has been “successful beyond anybody’s imagination.”

Scrapyards have quite the job ahead of them!