Today car dealers from across the USA will start to see the official NHTSA Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) registration letter in their mailbox.  David Wilson, CEO of the Preston Automotive Group  in Hurlock Maryland informed us that his letter arrived today.

According to Mr. Wilson, dealers will be able to register online on Friday July 24th but will not be able to input sales for NHTSA processing until Monday July 27th.  

We are assuming that the NHTSA will have staff working around the clock and through the weekend to review and approve dealer applications submitted on Friday.

We would also predict that some more conservative dealers may wait until Monday to start taking in trades because of their inability to know that they have been approved and that they can submit a trade for reimbursement. 

Friday’s Rush to The Web

This brings up and interesting scenario as 25,000 dealers potentially could hit their web server on Friday.  We sure hope that they have stress tested their application system in advance.   The link to the dealer portal is: http://www.cars.gov/index.php/dealer

We are still awaiting the final rules to be published for car dealers by Friday.  We expect a heavy traffic load on this website on Friday.  Be sure to visit us on a regular basis as we review and decode the rules.  There are still many unanswered questions and we hope to have better clarity on Friday and Saturday.

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The next week will be a busy one for news so you are reminded to follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cashclunkers.   You can also add your name to our email alert list in the upper left hand corner of this page.

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