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TJ_98370
Bubble Banter Boss
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 8:40 am
Posts: 844
Location: Poulsbo
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 Re: Cash for Clunkers . An excerpt from a Market Ticker article is quoted below. Its is an encouraging prediction for those wanting a newer car that feel they missed out on Cash for Clunkers -- if you have any cash..... . Where's My Economic Recovery?. .....But "cash for clunkers" is now known to have massively pulled-forward demand and left a vacuum behind, as the most-recently posted auto sales were disastrously bad. This of course portends a resumption of credit contraction next month, never mind what may come from those who bought "clunker deals" but can't afford them. If you're looking for a new(er) car the best time to buy may well be in the late winter and spring of next year, when the lates have turned into repossessions and the lots are rather likely to be full of six-month-old cars with a few thousand miles on them clogging up dealer lots, destroying not only the poor fools who took on debt they can't afford but adding further punishment to new car sales (after all, why buy new when you can buy a six-month old vehicle at 30% - or more - off!)......
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| Sun Oct 11, 2009 9:46 am |
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TJ_98370
Bubble Banter Boss
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 8:40 am
Posts: 844
Location: Poulsbo
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Re: Cash for Clunkers . This article has nothing to do with “Cash for Clunkers” and is barely related to the “Economy” but should be of interest to gearheads. I just recently learned about the HCCI engine. GM is reportedly close to production. If it really does get a 15% improvement in fuel efficiency, we may be seeing alot of these things around in the near future. . HCCI - Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition.
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| Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:52 am |
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Lake Hills Renter
Bubble Banter Boss
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 9:13 pm
Posts: 566
Location: Bellevue
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Re: Cash for Clunkers TJ_98370 wrote: ...never mind what may come from those who bought "clunker deals" but can't afford them....destroying not only the poor fools who took on debt they can't afford but adding further punishment to new car sales...
. That somehow sounds strangely familiar, but I just can't put my finger on which market it was...
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| Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:56 pm |
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WestSideBilly
Bubble Banter Boss
Joined: Mon Feb 04, 2008 1:41 pm
Posts: 561
Location: Land of entitlement
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Re: Cash for Clunkers rose-colored-coolaid wrote: WestSideBilly wrote: I've always felt (and still do) that kids should be required to pass their driver license exam in a vehicle without power brakes, ABS, or power steering, a manual transmission, and about 80 horsepower. Yeah! And make them crank the shaft to start the car as well, just to prove they can do it. While I agree with you that we hand out driver's licenses far too easily, your list of requirements doesn't really make much sense. No matter how safely a given young driver can drive, the combination of handling and youthful-invincibility makes them more like to choose to drive recklessly. If anything, a better test would probably be to put them in the most suped up car you can find, and then see if they can pass. Just try going 20 mph through the school zone with a 700 HP engine. Then, once they've passed the test a wise parent will make sure to replace the engine in their car with something crippled to 70-90 HP. You can't eliminate the reckless behavior. The point is to teach new drivers to analyze and anticipate. Modern cars are good enough where you can follow the car in front of you and slam on your brakes and usually avoid the car in front of you. This leads to people driving closer and closer. Take away the ABS and heavily boosted brakes, and you're forced to watch not just the car in front of you, but the car in front of that one, as well as the general flow of traffic ahead of you.
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| Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:26 am |
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redmondjp
Bubble Bloviator
Joined: Tue May 01, 2007 2:02 pm
Posts: 199
Location: Redmond, WA
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Re: Cash for Clunkers WestSideBilly wrote: . . . Take away the ABS and heavily boosted brakes, and you're forced to watch not just the car in front of you, but the car in front of that one, as well as the general flow of traffic ahead of you. But this is no longer possible, due to the combination of many more trucks and SUVs on the road than 30 years ago, high beltlines, and deep-tint rear windows on most SUVs and minivans. I remember growing up back in the 1970s when all cars were about the same height, very few pickups and trucks were used for daily drivers, and virtually nobody had deep-tinted windows, and you could easily look straight through the insides of several vehicles in front of you to see what was ahead. Also, you were much safer backing out in parking lots, as you could actually see through the side windows of the adjacent parked cars to see if anybody was coming. Not anymore! As has been covered earlier in this thread, automobiles have made great strides in safety, but NOT in the area of visibility from within. That tragic accident a couple of months ago in south Puget Sound where a guy accidently ran over and killed his neighbor's daughter who was on a tiny bicycle as he was slowly pulling into his garage, well that accident could have been completely avoided if he had been driving a small car (say, a 1988-91 Civic station wagon which has incredible front visibility due to highly upright seating position and sloped front end, and available 4 wheel drive as well) instead of a SUV.
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Fighting off Affluenza on the Eastside since 1995
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| Mon Oct 12, 2009 10:51 pm |
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rose-colored-coolaid
Bubble Banter Boss
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:26 am
Posts: 1978
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Re: Cash for Clunkers WestSideBilly wrote: You can't eliminate the reckless behavior. The point is to teach new drivers to analyze and anticipate. Modern cars are good enough where you can follow the car in front of you and slam on your brakes and usually avoid the car in front of you. This leads to people driving closer and closer. Take away the ABS and heavily boosted brakes, and you're forced to watch not just the car in front of you, but the car in front of that one, as well as the general flow of traffic ahead of you. Um, can't you just have the instructor/tester enforce such behavior? Driver's ed cars have second brakes for the instructor, maybe they should add a "tailgating sensor" which chimes an annoying alarm if you follow too closely. That sounds better than teaching them on crippled cars and expecting them not to learn how to be dangerous later on.
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| Thu Oct 15, 2009 11:11 am |
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WestSideBilly
Bubble Banter Boss
Joined: Mon Feb 04, 2008 1:41 pm
Posts: 561
Location: Land of entitlement
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Re: Cash for Clunkers I'm sure you've noticed that as soon as people are around a police car they suddenly "behave" - drive the speed limit, signal, hang up the cell phone - and just as quickly resume their bad habits once the police car is out of sight. People know how to drive, they just don't practice the good behavior unless the threat of getting a ticket is imminent. But if you start someone off driving in such a way that they're forced to use the good behaviors, more of those habits will stick.
The reason for my drastic suggestion is that the system doesn't work. New drivers get relatively little time with instructors, and in my experience many instructors are not that good of drivers, much less teachers. They then drive around with their parents, most of whom are also not very good drivers, and in most cases have been "teaching" bad habits for their child's entire upbringing. Driver's tests are what, 20 minutes long? There's no way to measure driving comprehension in 20 minutes (other than abject failure).
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| Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:21 am |
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rose-colored-coolaid
Bubble Banter Boss
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:26 am
Posts: 1978
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Re: Cash for Clunkers WestSideBilly wrote: I'm sure you've noticed that as soon as people are around a police car they suddenly "behave" - drive the speed limit, signal, hang up the cell phone - and just as quickly resume their bad habits once the police car is out of sight. People know how to drive, they just don't practice the good behavior unless the threat of getting a ticket is imminent. Sounds like you are advocating cameras on every street corner and extensive ticketting?
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| Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:21 pm |
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WestSideBilly
Bubble Banter Boss
Joined: Mon Feb 04, 2008 1:41 pm
Posts: 561
Location: Land of entitlement
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Re: Cash for Clunkers No. Other than red light cameras, at least.
Too much of a financial incentive to abuse cameras/ticketing, which is already problematic.
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| Tue Oct 27, 2009 12:20 pm |
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TJ_98370
Bubble Banter Boss
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 8:40 am
Posts: 844
Location: Poulsbo
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Re: Cash for Clunkers . This story really should not be a surprise to anybody following CFC news. Sales numbers were available last August indicating that full size pickup trucks were the best sellers. . Cash for Clunkers Hugely Successful at Buying People New Pickup Trucks. So a few months and Freedom of Information Act requests later, it turns out that more than anything else, Americans used the wildly popular “Cash for Clunkers” stimulus program to hustle the government into buying them new trucks. The most common trade in the program was one Ford F150 pickup truck for another.
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The single most common swap — which occurred more than 8,200 times — involved Ford F150 pickup owners who took advantage of a government rebate to trade their old trucks for new Ford F150s. They were 17 times more likely to buy a new F150 than, say, a Toyota Prius. The fuel economy for the new trucks ranged from 15 mpg to 17 mpg based on engine size and other factors, an improvement of just 1 mpg to 3 mpg over the clunkers…………….
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| Wed Nov 04, 2009 6:54 pm |
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