Cael, I agree with you. I’ve never seen so many whiners and crybabies as on this site. So many people whining. Yuck.

This site seems to just love pushing any bad news about C4C.

Well, the majority of people buying new cars are NOT having any problems, including myself and my son. Heck, I did my C4C deal back on July 3 with my Ford dealer, gave me my new car and waited until July 27 to submit the paperwork. Smooth as can be. And my son did his C4C deal at a Subaru dealer August 8, smooth also.

You seem to have a real sense of entitlement. Next time you go to the grocery store just bring all of your food to the counter and tell the clerk you are going to take it home. They should not worry because you applied for food stamps last week and they should get them some time in the future. How does the store know if you lied on your application? We have had deals rejected where consumers have provided bogus proofs of insurance that did not get past the audit. The dealer should not risk their necks on these deals there are no guarantees. What if we had rolled the car and now had to go chase it down and sell it as used now? Also, we would have destroyed that person’s clunker.

You have had your turd for how long? A few more weeks won’t kill you. YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO A NEW CAR. If you want one, pony up the money. Otherwise, afford the dealer some patience.

You sound like the woman that called 911 on Burger King for not making her Western Burger correctly.

“At my dealership we have just learned the hard way that if our customer happens to owe back taxes or child support their voucher is intercepted leaving the dealer holding the bag. We had a $4,500 rebate reduced to $1,800.

Cael, My cash strapped State will search out Gov’t monies for back child support. I find your statement totally believable and anyone who doesn’t is in their own State of Denial. It’s a misconception if people don’t think this rebate is tied to their name.

I do hope you were turned into NHSTA. If not, why not give out the name of your dealership so that we can do so? You obviously had no intention of going the the rules that you signed and agreed to. You should be prosecuted to the fullest length of the law.

While I understand that dealers are left “holding the bag” and need to protect themselves, why are you accepting payment in full (minus rebate) when you know full well that it may take over 30 days for the customer to get the car? Why not accept a deposit until the sale is finalized and the vehicle is delivered? Why do you expect the consumer to float $20,000 when your dealership will not float $4,500?

I purchased my car on July 24th, but didn’t had a paper work that showed I owned the car more than 1 year. So, the customers need to get that from their Secretary of State prior to going to the dealerships.

After I bought car and drove home, the salesman started sending fax to me. He said they forgot to get me to sign some documentation because they weren’t aware of C4C government paper. One of them was I would pay back $4500 if they don’t get the voucher payment from the government. I added addendum requring them to give me by Caddy back in same condition was I gave to them. If I’m paying them the money, then I wanted my car back. This didn’t go well with the salesman. He said his sales manager would call me, but never did. I wished they told me this before I signed the paper. They may have put this in place as “after thought”

I checked with them couple days ago. He said my paper work has been approved, but the government hasn’t paid them a cent. I’m still not out of woods yet.

As a salesperson I welcome any new business that is drummed up by CARS. I will do everything in my power to get your transaction processed quickly, but unless you give me the money to hold you are not getting your car.

I have had customers give us the money in the meantime. Others are waiting to trade cars until their approval comes in. If you have a payment due before you get the car, too bad. You are an adult and have enetered into a finance contract. If you don’t want to pay interest, pay cash. That’s what Dave Ramsey tells you to do anyway. I am forthright in giving my customers a realistic timeline for the transaction of possibly over 30 days.

At my dealership we have just learned the hard way that if our customer happens to owe back taxes or child support their voucher is intercepted leaving the dealer holding the bag. We had a $4,500 rebate reduced to $1,800. Regardless of what the public believes, we rarely(almost never) make $2,700 on a new car deal.

From what I understand, the CARS system also rejected thousands of applications last week with no reason. A computer error purged them out accidentally. All of those apps now must be re-submitted and go to the back of the line. That is not the dealers fault either. What if there was enough funds to pay one of those deals before, but now there is not with your new place in line. Why should the dealer be stuck with that burden.

Why should a dealer risk their future when so much uncertainty looms. We are doing everything in our power to get you your new car just be patient.

We were the 6th C4C deal with Colonial Honda the week before July 24th. On July 24th, we traded in our 1994 Infiniti J-30 that had 210,000 miles on it that may have been worth $500 with a full tank of gas. The dealer had a good inventory to pick from at the time and we purchased a Honda Fit and got the $4500 rebate. The dealer was well prepared by the 24th. The Honda so far has been averaging 35 mpg.

We were not looking for a car, the J-30 was a third vehicle that we did not use that much as it had become unreliable. I drive the Honda as much as possible, which saves me from driving my truck which only gets 16mpg.

Our “cash for clunker” purchase was the first for the dealership. The dealer seemed to be well organized and the transaction went smoothly. We got the car we wanted at an unbelievable price. In two weeks, the dealer was pretty much cleaned-out of any new cars to sell. I haven’t asked the dealer if they have received their rebates from the “cash for clunkers” trades, but after 3 weeks, many of those trades are still sitting in the back of the dealer’s lot.

I suspected this program could be a boondoggle, and it looks as if the government has not disappointed in this area. We sure are glad we took advantage of the program early to avoid all the current problems.

I thought his comments (from a dealer’s perspective) were interesting and wanted to share them with everyone given the discussion topic.

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http:// emichvw.blogspot.com/
FRED EMICH, General Manager of Emich Volkswagen, Denver Co.

“CASH FOR CLUNKERS…BLESSING OR CURSE?”

“No doubt the Cash for Clunkers or CARS program has been successful at driving customers to our dealerships. It has been great to see increased traffic and particularly increased sales. In fact at our current pace we would have our largest new vehicle sales month by almost 200% and would be close to out of inventory by the end of the month.

“Despite the great success of the program I am not sure if it is a blessing or a curse. Currently we have not been paid on a single Cash for Clunker voucher that we have submitted. Not only is the process to get our money time consuming and at certain points absurdly inefficient but the payment process has been worse. Just today it took over an hour holding on the phone to learn that some of our submissions were rejected due to a government computer error and they would have to be resubmitted and put back at the end of the line for payment. Despite not being paid by the government and having over $100,000 in receivables we continue to give customers what the government says is their money in hopes that we the dealer will be reimbursed in the future. I guess at this point all I can do is cross my fingers and hope the Obama administration holds true to their word.”

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NOTE: My experience with Emich was extremely positive and they were a pleasure to work with. They played by the rules and let me take the car the day of purchase. I have no complaints and would highly recommend Emich to anyone in the market of a new car.

It’s too bad this program has turned into such a negative experience for some many involved. In the end, I have feeling that this program will have caused more damage than it did good. I hope we, as a country, learn from this and think twice before rolling out another big government sponsored program.

it stands to reason that this cash for clunkers ordeal is a smokescreen or testbed for the government health care being discussed now. 3 billion as a proof of concept for a much larger program.

Nothing is as it seams, NOTHING. at least I can have a little more faith in my dealer, not talking blind faith, but still a little more appreciative of their claims regarding the struggle. Monday I am going to call the OIG and attorney general and shift the claims for fraud on to the federal government.

lets see how well the snake can eat itself.

Oh well, I’m still waiting (20 days now) for my salesman to call and tell me they have approval so I can pick up my car. I guess this isn’t exactly working the way our congresspersons intended. I wonder if all the big financial institutions had to jump through hoops for the tens of billions of dollars of my tax money they got. This stupid program is only 3 billion divided amongst all of us.

I wish I could walk away and start over elsewhere but I am afraid that would cause a lot more problems. Like what happens when the NHTSA sees that you applied for vouchers at different dealers and using the same clunker. Sigh, what to do but wait?

In the meantime, everyone affected needs to do the same. Write a simple version of your story and copy/paste it to every news org. It will take you about 30 min. to cover everyone. Then do it again on Monday.

BE A SQUEAKY WHEEL AND A PAIN IN THE BUTT!

Frustrated in Connecticut

WOW, that’s a good one. Yet oh so many folks are in limbo…car held hostage and paying the first payment on an auto loan for the car yet to be received. Perhaps, these dealers should provide the interest payments on these such loans.

You need to contact everyone you can think of in regard to this problem. And that means, naming the dealers as well, that are not following the program. I understand their issue and don’t blame them for what they are doing, but we need to bring this to national attention if the problem is going to be addressed. Email your reps as well and demand they respond to this issue. Hold them accountable to doing their job.

BE THE SQUEAKY WHEEL!

We currently have 50% of our clunker transactions approved, of which 32% of those have actually been funded. We submitted our first clunker transaction to CARS on July 28, 2009. Initially, the key to submitting clunker transactions, was to do it in the evening, pacific time, when the website had less of a load.

There has been little movement in clunker deal processing for the last week. If a dealership did not submit transactions till last week, they have likely seen very little approval activity.

I am certain that our dealership will get paid for all of these transactions. Luckily our dealership is in a good financial position. If a dealership was in a tight financial position, lack of timely government reimbursement could create a significant issue which could lead to an out of trust situation.

It would be nice if the NHTSA would provide interest payments on the transactions that did not follow the 10 day reimbursement rule required by the program.