Cash for Clunkers and How it Could Have Applied to the Used Car Market

In future years after this article goes to press, I have no doubt that even with new funding approved to extend Cash for Clunkers, we'll be talking about it being only moderately successful until there's ever enough money available to make sure everybody can affordably get an energy efficient car or be forced to own one if drivers don't want a stiff fine. Despite the initial concept sounding good in the abstract, you know you're in trouble when new car dealerships refuse to participate, fines or not, because they don't trust the government to hand over the bucks they promised. There's also potential for more rebellion: The used car market screaming foul and unfair practices for leaving them out of the fray.

It's a shame then that the used car market is the size of a flea compared to the behemoth of the new car dealers. Those used car dealer complaints can't even be heard at that allegorical size, even though you've probably already heard reports in your local towns and cities of numerous used car dealerships complaining bitterly they're being left out in a lonely outpost. They became the initial victim of the idea that all cars worth their salt as an economically-sound vehicle have to be brand spanking new.

If you've ever spent time at a used car dealership, you'll realize that you can find some very fuel-efficient used cars there no more than a few years old. Sure, those dealers sometimes still stick to their mantra of Clunkers for Cash with cars more than a decade old and occasionally cars suitable for a sodium silicate suicide. But you'll find more reputable used car dealerships out there than you might think who want to sell you a car not all that old for a decent price. It's these people who are going to suffer significantly more than the new car dealerships will.

Before Cash for Clunkers, the most recent and ironic scenario was passing any used car dealer and generally seeing SUV's being offloaded right and left. This was more the result of when we were paying over $3 a gallon for gas through most of 2008. I even noted in an article last year that the death of the SUV seemed imminent what with the then soaring gas prices. Since then, gas and oil prices have obviously stabilized and the usual American tactic of complacency has taken over. The first half of 2009 has probably increased SUV's on the roadways again as gas prices lowered and a reignited philosophy of soccer moms not being able to run someone off the road with their SUV usurped last year's progress.

You'll still be able to see an SUV or three sitting all by their lonesome on a used car lot with no takers. That might change now, though, had or if Cash for Clunkers allowed people to trade in their older clunker for a newer car that's no more than five years old. Such a scenario only brings more complications in the process of determining what constitutes a fuel-efficient car in the used market.
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In the realms of environmentalism, dealing with used cars that are on the road is obviously a thin line to tread when it comes to fuel efficiency. Nevertheless, if Cash for Clunkers wants to help more people, they'll have to compromise and realize that a car no more than a few years old isn't going to be spreading exorbitant amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Most used car dealerships would be willing to make sure the cars they take in aren't ones that racked up 100,000 miles before turning five years old and aren't already spewing enough carbon to barely qualify for inevitable national emission requirements in the coming decade.

Perhaps the only thing the Obama Administration would be against in having the used car market involved is the possibility those used cars wouldn't qualify for their emission demands in future years. Such a scenario means disgruntled drivers having to put extra money into upgrading their Cash for Clunkers used car in order to drive on America's roads without having it confiscated. That's why the younger the used car, the better, even though most used car dealerships prefer not to be boxed in with limitations.

Within the possibility of Cash for Clunkers including used car dealers, the reality will be that they'll want to sell anything they have on the lot and not just their reasonably newer cars. At this point, however, used car dealers would take anything they can get when Cash for Clunkers is raking in the millions for new car dealers and used car lots are nearly resorting to hiring sign twirlers on the streets just to get people to turn their head in interest.

Yet it's no surprise that the American populace who wouldn't mind offloading their own clunker or SUV never have recognition in how much they may be hurting if their income is too low to buy a new car. Millions more in America could take part in Cash for Clunkers if they could have a straight trade on their clunker for the $3,500-$4,500 equivalent of a qualified used car 3-5 years old. Along with guidelines from the government that ensures participants don't get ripped off with a lemon, anybody driving a vehicle more than a decade old could still participate environmentally while also getting a newer car that'll last them longer.

Since our national deficits don't really allow Cash for Clunkers to prevail as it should, the chances are that the Obama Administration will inevitably have to deal with forcing many Americans to retrofit their older cars in the second decade of the 21^st century. Based on the chaos of Cash for Clunkers, dealing with older cars being environmentally efficient will probably be relatively easy to control in comparison. And when new and used car dealerships start folding left and right as a victim of the auto industry failures, America may just end up in surreal territory where surviving older vehicles dot every road in cities large and small...