Cash for Clunkers Claims more than 30,000 Jeep Vehicles

The governments great cash for clunkers program that sparked the autmotive sector of the economy over the summer of 2009 claimed more than 30,000 Jeep Vehicles. Jeep's have often had a bad rap for being expensive to repair and not friendly on the road. As an individual who has had multiple Jeeps with a 3 in the left column on the speedometer, I find this as flawed logic, and I'm deeply saddend to see the 30,000 vehicles fall off the road with no hope of salvage for engines or Wrangler body tubs as the "unibody and frame" are two additional parts that could not be sold in conjunction with the engine.

See Stats Here for CFC Trade Ins
http://www.cars.gov/files/official-information/trade-in-vehicles.pdf


The thing that I find so shocking, and that makes me sad is that unlike Hyundai, Kia, Honda, and Ford, you can open a Jeep Specific catalog and order parts to build and entire Jeep. You cant do that with a Ford Tarus or Honda Civic. With Jeeps you can buy everything out of the catalog including the engine, frame and body tub. If one did buy all those parts, that newly custom built Jeep or refurbished old Jeep, is still a Jeep. It is still going to pollute, and it is still going to get poor mileage. In theory would it not be better to have recycled the engines, frames, and body tubs from the CFC Jeeps to keep from wasting energy and resources on new parts?





The whole concept with cash for clunkers was to remove vehicles from the road that were polluting vehicles, substituting them with new cleaner emissions, and more fuel efficient vehicles, all while sparking the economy. I'm not a statistical expert, but this is again also flawed logic. The guy who already wrecked and totaled his new car that he got by trading in his clunker is probably back driving a $5000 Clunker car now. So clunkers actually cost that one person to consume three cars. There is nothing environmentally friendly, efficient, or good about consuming three vehicles. Furthermore the poor people, or people who by choice want to drive a good vehicle for $3000 are very limited in used car selection right now, and will be for many years to come, because of the CFC program.





Take this example
This 1990 Jeep Comanche Pickup was clunkered. It appears to be fairly rust free, and it is a rare Eliminator Package. The stats on this vehicle from the salvage auction show that it was a 4.0 six cylinder, 5 speed, 4x4. Anyone who has owned or driven one of these trucks knows that this is a bad ass little truck. These trucks are getting scarce. There are plenty of them out there on the road in much worse shape than this one that the owners will keep running for many many more years. Personally I would have paid top dollar to buy this one as it appears to be in great shape. If some one would have owned this truck for the next 10 year and driven it another 100,000 miles to haul lumber, firewood, lanscaping supplies, kids sports equipment, fishing gear, or anything else that people haul in pickups, there would have been little or no effect on pollution vs a new Ford Ranger or Chevy Colorado. I'd almost bet that the two new trucks would cost more to maintain over the first 100,000 miles than this Comanche would have for miles 160,000 to 260,000.

We need to realize that if indeed we are going to live in a capitalist society that we need to let large companies like AIG, Chrysler, and Citi Bank fail if they can't be run properly. Our money in the bank is insured by the Federal Reserve, the same entity that printed the cash to pay the dealers for CFC program. While a government trade in program is a good idea, it should have come with sustainable economic principal behind it. Pay now, get cash refund at tax time later, give the cash to the end consumer who may chose to spend it to continue to support the economy. Giving that money to the car dealer, for the car trasaction, is not giving it to the end consumer. Our nation has been built by a strong bottom to the barrel. It supports those who are at the top. The problem is that we have gotten top heavy, sucking the life out of the support in the middle, and the bottom is quickly becoming worthless. Killing a Jeep Comanche with tons of life left in it only adds to sucking that life out of the middle and pushing people further down towards worthless.

Does anyone know how much of the scrap metal ASIA has bought from us that came from these clunkers? I'm sure I'll find out in a few years when I goto purchase a $150 microwave and it costs $500 because they own all the scrap.