Cash for Clunkers - How they destroyed the engines

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Some of those head gasket fix products use that. It goes in the cooling system and fills holes in head gaskets, block cracks, etc.
 
Yup, I have video of us doing one. Actually ended up quite finny when the upper rad hose let go while one of the techs was watching too close. No-one was hurt.
 
If the vehicle is leaking from somewhere, replace the part. I never understood the stop leaks. More harm than good!
 
It was the biggest waste of vehicles. I saw the European cash 4 clunkers and they turned in junk, yet Americans junked vehicles that were fine. A guy on a different forum worked for the company that made sodium silicate, and said all of the sudden they had a ton of orders. It cost tax payers $24,000 per person. It irks me that so many participated.
 
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It was a thinly veiled corporate welfare programme.

You can make your own sodium silicate out of silica gel and lye...it's handy stuff when mixing geopolymers from fly-ash, and much cheaper than harvesting it from radiator sealer.

Can make fireproof/termite proof wood with it too.
 
Destroy a car that has already done it's worst environmental damage (its construction) and moved on, in order to replace it with a new one that creates a new legacy of environmental harm.

Brilliant.
 
Plenty of benefits to program too.

1) incredible offer for Junk piles. Sister managed this on turn in with non passing inspection domestic SUV that was severely neglected. It was given to her (paid $1) and worked for a year or so. Destruction put it out of misery.
2) used vehicle prices increased which benefitted sellers who went on to new vehicles. My father reduced his vehicle collection and was paid incredible money IMHO.
 
Originally Posted By: madRiver
Plenty of benefits to program too.

1) incredible offer for Junk piles. Sister managed this on turn in with non passing inspection domestic SUV that was severely neglected. It was given to her (paid $1) and worked for a year or so. Destruction put it out of misery.
2) used vehicle prices increased which benefitted sellers who went on to new vehicles. My father reduced his vehicle collection and was paid incredible money IMHO.


Wasn't a very good program compared to most alternatives available:

https://www.brookings.edu/interactives/cash-for-clunkers-an-evaluation/
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/upl...brief_gayer.pdf

Even the GAO wasn't convinced: http://www.gao.gov/assets/310/303722.pdf

And our own thread on this earlier this year:
https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/4461835/1

Of course it got closed because, politics.
 
Originally Posted By: madRiver
Plenty of benefits to program too.

1) incredible offer for Junk piles. Sister managed this on turn in with non passing inspection domestic SUV that was severely neglected. It was given to her (paid $1) and worked for a year or so. Destruction put it out of misery.
2) used vehicle prices increased which benefitted sellers who went on to new vehicles. My father reduced his vehicle collection and was paid incredible money IMHO.


Ahh...wealth transfer...the recipients always think that's a great idea.
 
Originally Posted By: Panzerman
A total shame and sad to watch. It made me mad. So wasteful and being a tax payer, I was forced to fund such a travesty.


+1

The ultimate boondoggle.
 
Never understood the point of this, seeing (IIRC), it benefited foreign automakers than it did domestic. Believe the most popular "clunker" was the Gen II Explorer.
 
I remember Ebay sold stickers that said "I survived cash for clunkers." Lots of guys were putting them on their clean XJ's because yes.. they qualified.

Saw a really nice 4 cylinder TJ that had been "sold to Obama" as the dealer had sprayed that on the windshield. Minimal rust from what I could see. Empty containers of sodium silicate in the back. I believe they couldn't sell you anything on the engine, but what about the body?

You know some junkyards weren't completely honest with this program. Heck, you pay cash and they just stick it in their pockets. You can get more of a discount by bringing a 12 pack of _____________. (insert favorite macro brew beer here.)
 
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The program made finding good used vehicles extremely difficult for a few years. I remember because it was right when one of my sisters was looking for a used car. All of the used ones were insanely expensive and the Craigslist ads had sayings like "I can get more for it in cash for clunkers so don't offer me less".

If you watch a lot of the videos the environmental destruction that occurs within those few minutes is probably greater than if the vehicle was driven for 5 more years.

In one video there is a Grand Cherokee with the 4.0L that runs for 9 minutes or so. It throws a rod, proceeds to puke oil and fluids all over the ground, and runs on 4 or 5 cylinders for a few more minutes while causing a giant cloud of smoke. Yep, that's good for the environment.

I worked with someone who did the program. The rule was you had to trade in a vehicle and purchase one that got much better mpg. This guy traded in his Explorer and got a Prius. Well... he soon found out why he was driving a beat up Explorer and not making car payments. He could barely afford the payments. The program put a lot of people in debt with car loans they couldn't afford.
 
I've also heard that the dealers just raised the price of new vehicles by slighty less than you got for trading something in under cash for clunkers.
 
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