I've suspected that this voucher deal is just a way to get people to buy a new car. If it were really about saving the planet, they would allow used vehicles up to 2-3 years old with under-xxx mileage, not just new. None of the vehicles on the Consumer Reports list are under $15k, either.

It'll do nothing for the average American. Why? Cause they STILL won't be able to get CREDIT to buy the car. Did anyone think that the reason people are keeping their old one is because they can't get APPROVED to buy a new one, not that they don't want to or just can't afford it? BTW, I could go out and get a used car that gets better gas mileage than what the low end limit is on these vouchers for 6 grand, easy. Again, its not that people don't want a new car, its that they can't get approved for the credit for one.

You want to help us out, really help us out? Don't let every tom, dick and harry file crap on our credit report. Blockbuster shouldn't be allowed to file something on my report because the state was closed for 2 days and my movie rentals ran a day over.

I'd do this in a heartbeat if you could get a used car. One thing I don't get though. If you take a dealer up on this, do they give you the trade-in value for your car on top of the $3500/4500 credit? Or do you just straight up get the credit and that's it?

@downwithmonstercable: No, you get scrap value for the car, because your trade will be crushed, not resold.

@henrygates: Which is why I can see car dealerships willing to give you JUST over the limit for your car so they can make the money reselling it rather than sending it to the junk heap.

My family thought we'd be able to do this - we own a 1992 Buick Roadmaster wagon that gets 17 mpg. We were hoping to use the credit to buy a nice used four-door sedan with better gas mileage. However, as specified under the new terms of this program, we can't afford to buy a new car from a dealership. This bill went from helping average Americans to helping the car dealerships. Thanks, lobbyists. Your work is done.

Ok, as far as i understand, the environmental impact of keeping your old car outweighs the impact of buying a new, more efficient car. Basically, it pollutes more to design, test, acquire material, build, ship, and sell a new car than it does to get 20 miles or less to the gallon. Now, I am sure factors such as amount driven may have some bearing on the subject, it seems counterproductive to try and pollute more to save the environment. Isn't that like spending more money to get out of debt?

@downwithmonstercable: You get only scrap value for your car. The fuel-inefficient cars are to be destroyed..

If I could get trade in value plus the voucher, I'd be looking at a couple grand for a brand new car, or cashback on a late-model used car.

Cant have cake and eat it too...

I think this would have been a great program to stimulate new car sales if they had based the credit on the absolute improvement in fuel economy instead of setting the maximum fuel efficiency of the trade-in at 18mpg.

In effect, they are saying an improvement from 18 to 22 is worth $3500, but going from 19 to 28 is worth squat. (Guess how many mpg my clunker gets...)

@skizsrodt: You're under the impression the gov't cares more about the environment than propping up the new car industry.

This plan seems to work for me. i'm gonna trade in my 1996 Crown Vic with over 207k miles for a new BMW. Getting Military Financing helps.

-dave

This is just more fiscally irresponsible government spending from the same people who have already brought us trillions of debt. More fail.

I personally hate the term "fuel sipping." It really irritates me.

@batsy:

I wonder how many scummy car dealers will rip off the public under this program? I could think of a million ways car dealers could screw their customers and we'll be reading about on Consumerist.

Oh that nasty one year insurance catch.

Don't know what I am talking about? You must prove that you have insured the trade in clunker for the past year. Just a little catch to keep you from buying a car for $500 and trading the heep in to collect $4500.

Hey, I own an old truck. It is a junker. Use it on my piece of property out in the country to haul sheit around. Does it have insurance? Of course not. Who spends real $ on a piece of sheit? Besides, the last time it was off the property I drove it all of about 1/4 mile to grab a couple cases of sodas and 200 lbs of ice from the little store up the road. IF the tires had fallen off and I ran over a tree I would have left the clunker on the side of the road and walked back to the house.

It qualifies, but I don't insure it. Life sure sux.

Pffft. No diesels on that list. I HEART my TDI Bug. Even driving like a complete maniac, I pop 38mpg. If I feel like behaving that number climbs substantially up to 50mpg.

The program really makes trade-ins worthless because the old car has to be junked and the dealer won't be able to re-sell it. Unless the trade-in value is less than $3,500/$4,500. It's not a particularly attractive deal.

We also did some math and figured out that to recover the cost of a new car just from the savings in gasoline would take around 15 years.

Thanks. I'll keep what I've got.

If you can buy a near-dead low-mileage car for $1000, can you just turn around and get 3500.00 on it at the dealership under this program?

@geoffhazel:
The car has to meet the following conditions:
*have been manufactured less than 25 years before the date you trade it in
*have a "new" combined city/highway fuel economy of 18 miles per gallon or less
*be in drivable condition
*be continuously insured and registered to the same owner for the full year preceding the trade-in

So...no.

My dad was looking into using this program, he has an 89 Chevy Celebrity that's listed at 20 mpg, just 2 over the limit of 18 it seems. He wants to buy a 32 mpg Honda Fit.

I don't suppose there's any workaround to qualify for this program, is that right? Even though there's a 12 mpg increase, he didn't start with a low enough number...

I get the feeling this bill was more about saying they did something than actually doing anything. I am sure it will benefit someone, I am just not sure who. I do see it as something that will be used by con-men to cheat misinformed folk out of money and possibly their cars.

@chocobo: According to the guidelines, trade-in must get 18mpg or less according to fueleconomy.gov. Doesn't matter if he goes from 20mpg to 60mpg.

What is their definition of "drivable"? If I took out any non-"necessary" parts, it is still drivable if it moves under its own power?

@I speak Jive.: OK, pretty much what I thought then, thanks. I wonder why the 18mpg limit is there, instead of just allowing it for anyone who can get a 10mpg upgrade. Obviously very few people with 26 mpg cars would be able to do that.

It accomplishes the exact same thing if my dad could get a 12mpg upgrade as if someone went from 18mpg to 30mpg. But of course, this is just "I want a free $4500 too" complaining here.

@chocobo:

Never underestimate a hungry car salesman... I'm sure there are dealers out there sweeping stuff under the rug to get the deal.

I would prefer that they had passed a bill to have scrap yards buy these cars directly from the owner & hand the owner a check to sign over toward a new or used car with a 10MPG improvement. I'm afraid that this will just cause more trade-in value type dealer scamming.

@Eels: On a similar note, I can't stand commercials from Toyota or the like where they say "fuel efficient" or "fuel efficiency" about 10 times during the course of the commercial. I also hate when a car is "fuel efficient" because it gets 20 MPG. That's not that fuel efficient!

@henrygates: Yeah, if they amend this so that a person could buy a used car that's within a certain age limit and gas mileage and I'll believe it's got something to do with actually making a difference.

Otherwise it just looks like nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to get people to buy new cars.

Not only are there no cars under $15K listed in the CR article, but I'd also be willing to bet that a lot of these "clunkers" that they're trying to get off the roads are worth a lot more than the $3,500 or $4,500 credit you'll get for it.

@jayphat: So we should let people with poor credit borrow money to solve our problems? That's a lot of what got us into this mess. The people complaining about banks not lending money are the ones that don't have good credit.

I have a credit score of 813 and had no problem buying a house in the last month. I don't make a lot of money but I pay my bills and I'm rewarded for that.

@henrygates:

Well yeah...the purpose of the bill is to spur new car sales WHILE decreasing our depenance on foreign oil a bit. Of course, with funding of only 1B, that means the program will run 1-2 months, so car sales for 1-2 months really won't affect oil consumption much.

Too bad we didn't do this program from the start instead of just handing billions upon billions to auto companies, with no return. At least the consumer gets something out of their tax dollars (if they qualify) under this program.

@chocobo:

Nope, no workaround. I doubt there will be for this iteration either. If they do it in the future perhaps they will. This program rolls out at the end of July and will probably be out of funds in 1-2 months, so there is no way for them to independantly test each car.

@geoffhazel:

Nope.

@H3ion:

This is really just for cars that are actually clunkers. Cars worth maybe $500-$1500 or so that get terrible mileage and are polluting up our roads. Take my F150 for example. 1993, 225k miles. Gets 14 mpg, has a slight oil leak, blah blah. This is the type of vehicle they have in mind for the program.

And how does the government have money to do this?

Once again the gub'ment is rewarding those who have been driving gas hogs. I'll get no reward for continuing to drive my '94 Honda that gets 35mpg. But I'll bear the tax burdens of rewarding those who've enjoyed their big Suburbans, oversized pickups, or Buick cruisers, but who now want an easy way out of their gas-guzzling money pit.

@chocobo:

Yeah, the government could not have done something intelligent like make it a delta, like a 15MPG or something.

It's disappointing to see The Consumerist and CR supporting this theft from taxpayers that is nothing but an obvious sop from politicians to well-connected corporations and unions.

@Saboth: Gee, an F150 with only 225k miles is practically showroom new .

I think what really torques me is that $4500 off the price of a new car really isn't going to help much. Personally, I don't want a new car and all the baggage associated with it (recalls, defects, etc). I'd rather put that money into something that has been proven reliable.

I miss Michael Jackson. Wahh.

@thereij:
and yes, I know used cars have these problems too, but I think the educated among us get my point.

@I speak Jive.:
I totally agree. My truck gets a combined 19 mpg according to the EPA. Actual is probably 17. I was going to trade in for a VW Jetta TDI which averages 44 mpg (58 mpg in a contest), but don't qualiffy for anything.
I guess you have to go from a Hummer to a Prius in order to qualify.

@batsy:

Exactly. I have a 1993 Buick Regal. It would qualify but I cannot afford a new car. I can't make the payments.

The payment on my Buick is $50 a month - btw, thanks, Dad, for negotiating that for me! :) There's NO WAY I can pay more than $75 right now and who sells a new car for a $75 a month payment!? No one, that's who!

I think I'd like to get this green car:

[www.koenigsegg.com]

Runs better on E85 than regular gasoline.

@thereij: Except that if they junk it, they get reimbursed by the government. If they sell it, they have to recoup that trade-in value.

@Eels: I hate the term "fuel." I mean, think about it! It's so irritating!

Sorry, Planet Earth -- if it isn't a Volvo 100, 200, 700 or 900 series, I'm not buying it. But hey, buying a used car is recycling in a way, right? Let's call it even.

@razremytuxbuddy:

I don't understand why it took GM and Ford so long to produce fuel effecient cars. The only REAL fuel effecient car from GM is the Korean Chevy Aveo (Daewoo Kalos) and the Chevy Spark (Made in China).

My civic smokes my old Grand Prix in Mileage. Sure the Prix had more pickup and go, but the Prix also weighed allot more.

I bought my 09 TDI for less then they list the 2.5 jetta MSRP. I average 40 MPG. That doesnt deserve "Fuel Sipping"? Plus... diesel is cheaper then gas!

@skizsrodt: Yeah. And hybrids are even worse.

I worked it out once, a H1 creates less total pollution than a Prius, right up until just before the batteries need replacing in the Toyota, where it takes another few years and tens of thousands of miles to make it back.

Prius owners, you're killing the planet.

Me, I'm keeping my 91 Lumina.