(Don't) Scrap Your Old Car

[lymaze]

I just wanted to raise this one to see what others think on the new government attempt to get rid of older vehicles. As the owner of an 18 year fiesta I have no intention of taking them up on their pathetic scheme. For a start, £2,000 will buy me nothing and where would I get the other £8,000+ I would need to buy a new car anyway? Secondly, this only adds to wastage and in a world where we are tripping over rubbish do we really need more stuff that works perfectly well being thrown on the ever increasing earth tip? My car works fine, costs me only an MOT and the occasional extra replacement bits and gets me from A to Z with no trouble so far.

Some people are confusing this offer with thinking it's some green eco thing - it isn't. I'm sorry the car industry is struggling but it happens. What goes up must come down and it will all go full circle in the end. Until then, conserve and preserve.

[Mayfayre]

Hear hear! The amount of energy needed to manucacture a new car must be far more than the difference in the fuel used/emissions produced by an old car and a new one.

[inky]

And as for supporting the car industry, as most of out cars are built in Germany and other far-flung countries, exactly whose car industry are we helping??

[ulstermayniac]

Yeah, I see your point, and I agree with you that if you don't want to scrap your old car, you don't have to as it isn't compulsory. On the other hand, the Government say that the cars won't just be scrapped, they will be recycled, but surely that is going to cost them a hell of a lot in resources? I really don't think they have thought this one through properly. As for the £2,000, I agree, that won't get you much. I don't think that the Government hand out the money to the people directly, they have struck a deal with the showrooms to deduct the £2,000 off the final total of your new car. I saw a commercial here yesterday where they mentioned something about the scrapping scheme but I was distracted and didn't hear it all. You couln't even spend the £2,000 on a second hand car, but that isn't the point, the point is to help the new car industry. Surely some businesses in the UK will benefit from this? I know that manufacturing is not here anymore, or has been shrunk down considerably, but does anyone think that there are any companies here that will benefit?

Sounds like the Government are just going to fuel more debt at a time when people can't afford it. He should have started something like this in the 'good times' it might have had a chance to 'bed in' and any bumps could have been smoothed out or if it didn't work, scrap it completely. Starting something like this now might be a bit of a waste of time.

[TheDaisy]

The only people (other than the obvious ones) who would benefit, would be the people working in the new car showrooms, and the guys who drive the vehicle transporters. At least they'd get to keep their jobs.
But unless the car in question is belching smoke and oil as it goes, I can't see the honest point in being offered such a small cash incentive to 'recycle' it. In my current situation two grand seems like a nicely sized lump of cash, but it won't buy you the best car, will it? The ones you could afford to buy, tax and insure with that amount of money would probably be WORSE than the one you had originally in the first place.

[ulstermayniac]

Yes, exactly, and I don't think you can go 'second hand' either.

[Wyvern]

And of course, new cars fall into the new tax bands, whereas cars pre about 1997 (I'd have to look it up) will be bracketed into something like two bands only. As the incentive applies to ALL new cars, it means there's a fair chance unless you buy a little eco-box you'd be paying less tax on your old car.

The carbon cost of manufacture of new cars is the 'elephant in the room,' a drawback so obvious that no one will admit to seeing it. Even if you bought a Prius there's the horrendous environmental cost of producing the batteries, and of course, the truly horrid G-Wiz is manufactured in Bangalore, so goodness knows what the carbon cost of importing it is (though at least GoinGreen, the UK importer, is involved in carbon offsetting).

And just say all the people driving old cars suddenly decided to trade them in for a new one thanks to the government's 'generosity'? As well as the scrapping of all the old ones (and with the best will in the world, while they might be able to recycle the bodies and the tyres, a lot of the interior and workings can't be recycled because of the way materials have historically been combined), what about the potential effect on the car industry?

I'm not talking specifically about the British car industry, obviously, because we don't have one any more (unless you count companies like Bristol and Morgan, and I don't think they're the kind of thing the government has in mind here, and even the British names that have been supported by foreign interests, like Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Lotus, MG, Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin are rather, erm, specialist), but we do have manufacturing here for GM (Vauxhall, but let's not kid ourselves - it's just a badge these days), Toyota and Nissan to name but a few, and the current mess is as global as the industry itself. If people all decide to replace their ancient snotbuckets with something new and shiny, that's great for them for now, but what happens when the economy recovers? The car manufacturers are still knackered because the market has been artificially stimulated at a certain point, so rather than there being a vast potential market, everything stagnates for the next few years until people want to buy cars again. It has the potential to be a microcosm of 'boom and bust', and it beggars belief that even given such a long term problem as the economic situation, the government is looking at a short-term answer.

But £2000 won't buy anything anyway. Even if you look at buying something new for around £7000, that leaves the buyer with £5000 to find. This will really only appeal to people who were in a position to buy a new car anyway and maybe were wavering a little, or who couldn't quite get the money together but the scrappage payment will mean they just about have enough.

I hate the cynicism of this. The government is in the (Gordon) brown stuff and knows it, and is looking for a carrot to keep the voters on side, and they're sticking an environmental message on it to make it look like they're being green too, when really it's just a nasty piece of vote-grabbing short-termism. They're also too far in debt at the moment to do anything really meaningful financially. The whole thing is cobblers.

[inky]

Apr 25, 2009 11:56:27 GMT Wyvern said:

The whole thing is cobblers.

That's the most succinct and accurate description of the scheme I've heard so far. Couldn't agree more wy ;D ;D

[maureen]

I read this on Yahoo news a few days ago too. No way am I getting rid of John and The Old Lady. John just needs a few holes patched up, which Husband said he'll try to do when he gets some free time next week. OL is fixing to get her MOT and will probably only need a new muffler. Otherwise, these babies are mine as long as fixing them doesn't become more expensive than buying a slightly newer one or we end up moving to another country again.

[lew]

I've got two years on my old lady, till she's 10, and until my kids drive....blimey one year for big lew, she stays (that then will make her 17), and then I'll get the smallest car I can find, and old ;D......and my dream landy (very old) in the garage for crashing around the lanes .....it's all aload of b******s

[Vixen]

I don't understand the ethics of this. It's stupid. Old cars are good. Who on earth wants to buy their young teenage sprog a brand new car, when they'll probably crash it into a tree, person, car, lampost or animal (in mycase, the last one), in the first year? That's what old cars are for! If I hadn't have crashed my first car, which was older than me, I'd still have it now I expect!

And plus, as Ly said in the first post. Not everyone can afford new cars. Although I may have one, the minute I drove it off the forecourt, the value went down by a couple of grand. The parts on it are much more expensive too. When I had Skippy, the wing mirror broke, but I managed to get a new one from the scrap yard for a fiver, and get it fitted by a mate. But when the wing mirror broke on Jeremy, I had to pay out over £100 for a new one and fitting. I wouldn't give Jeremy up for the world, but I do wish I'd stuck with Skippy.

[ulstermayniac]

Awww, your car is called Jeremy! That is so sweeeeeeeeet!!

[ulstermayniac]

foreman.blogs.topgear.com/2009/05/13/save-our-scrappers/

[lymaze]

Yaaaay.

[ulstermayniac]

*kissy for top gear!!*

SAVE OUR sh*tTERS!!

[Wyvern]

*applauds*