Quote:
Originally Posted by Iexpedite
As you said it was designed to get people to buy cars from the struggling auto industry. It worked on your friends, they may not have purchased had the incentive not been there. Many of us were holding tight on to our wallets waiting for the other shoe to drop.
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"Worked" may be a bit of a stretch.
Both were starting to plan for a new vehicle anyways. One worked out fine, but still would have been better off selling private party.
The other rushed into buying a new car without doing enough research first. They let their Durango get crushed to buy a new Dodge Caravan that had problem after problem until they couldn't deal with it breaking down all the time. They ended up buying a used Ford Freestyle instead, and had to buy a '90's Chevy truck (another common "clunker") to take over the hauling duties that the Durango used to do. They would have been far better off to not use the program and just pick up the used Freestyle and keep the Durango.
Yes, there was a boost to the auto industry, but at a large cost both in taxes and in increased cost in the used car market, with little to no benefit to the person buying the car. That marks it as a huge failure in my book.