Cash for Clunkers closes

LYNN – The government’s Cash for Clunkers program officially becomes a thing of the past today, disappearing from the scene abruptly as government officials worried about the financial viability of extending the program.An effort to boost sagging auto sales in a rough economy, the program, launched July 27, provided refund vouchers of $3,500 and $4,500 on traded-in vehicles with a fuel-economy rating of 18 miles per gallon or less to be put toward the purchase of a new vehicle that was determined eligible under the program.Originally scheduled to run through Nov. 1, government officials said Thursday that Monday, Aug. 24 would be the last day for the program, but they are confident that they will have enough money to fund vouchers through that date.Dealers must have all paperwork submitted by 8 p.m. tonight to remain eligible for the program.Now that the voucher funding from the government has dried up, the gimmick is being remembered by dealers as a successful ploy to get customers in the door, despite painstakingly confusing regulations and long delays in approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation.”I personally am not a big fan of using taxpayer money to buy people new cars. That said, the program enabled a lot of people who normally wouldn’t be able to get out of an older vehicle,” said Atlantic Toyota General Manager John Biggio. “It created a substantial amount of traffic for us.”According to government figures, the popular program has netted consumers $1.9 billion in rebates thus far.As is the case in any good car deal, Cash for Clunkers came with a long list of rules and regulations, something that was confusing to customers and dealerships at first.Biggio said his staff had a hard time keeping track of all of the paperwork needed to file for the rebates and found the Web site provided by the transportation department difficult to use.”It created a lot of man hours on our part trying to abide by the government regulations and putting the information on the Web site. That was very cumbersome to use,” he said. “In the beginning there was a lot of paperwork that we were having to re-submit because there were mistakes and it took the government a long time to respond to the dealers but once they did, things started working more smoothly for us.”Another issue with the program is that the government must approve all transactions, but also requires dealers to deliver the new vehicles within seven days of the deal. Biggio said of the 80 Cash for Clunkers sales that Atlantic has made to this point, only 11 have been approved, but delivery has been taken on all new vehicles.If for some reason a pending deal is not approved, the dealership would have to eat the rebate money given to the customer.Still, Biggio said he is confident that all of the deals were done correctly and will be approved and is surprised to see what he considered a successful program end so abruptly.”I was shocked to hear (Thursday) that it was done,” he said. “To only give us four days notice on pending deals is tough.”Since the program has taken a toll on his inventory and he is already awaiting delivery on several pre-sold cars for customers, Biggio made the decision to end the program at Atlantic Friday, meaning anyone who came in with a clunker over the weekend was out of luck.