New Car
Jul 28th, 2009 by Graham Booker
Well, after much hassle, I now have a new car. Here are some pictures:
The whole ordeal was mostly due to the CARS program, which is often known by “Cash for Clunkers”. Anyway, I finally got that resolved and got a lot more for my old truck than I would have ever gotten in trade-in value. So now I have a VW Jetta, and so far I’m happy with it. I just need to get used to driving a car instead of a truck, but otherwise it drives well.
Nice, Book’. I had a Jetta in the early 90’s and loved it. Great car.
Now, tell me you paid cash and didn’t finance a dime.
Cheers!
Yes, paid cash. The amount I paid plus the CARS rebate, plus tax, title, and license was still below the MSRP.
Awesome.
Did you get the max rebate reward? I think it’s at $4,500? What kind of a truck was it? Just curious because my wife and I were looking into the CARS program. On the site it said that my vehicle qualifies for up to $4,500. We are looking at the Nissan Altima, any info that you have about the whole CARS program while at the dealership would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and have a great day.
note*- click it or ticket…. buckle up its the law. Drive safe and sober.
I only got the $3,500 because the new car was rated at 8 mpg higher than my old truck (86 1/2 V6 Nissan Pickup). It needed to be more than 10 to get the $4,500. I chose the car based on what I wanted instead of what would get me the best rebate.
One thing I noticed is that the dealerships like to quote MSRP minus the rebate. I’d suggest negotiating the price before the CARS program first, then do the CARS program. The only reason I got the deal I did was because I got frustrated with the dealership here and called the one in Austin and told them the price they quote me will determine which city I drive to (I’m about 1.5 hours from Austin and Houston, and about 2-3 hours from San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth so I have plenty of choices). After that quote, the dealership here gave me a much better price.
As per seat-belts and driving sober, I always do.
I came to your site through perian to read about the proper method for ac3 passthrough. I appreciate the post.
After reading that, however, I decided to poke around your other posts. Since it was nearer the top, I read about your taking advantage of the CARS program by purchasing a new Vdub. Pretty by the way. I was rather surprised, though, when I scrolled further down and read your March 25th post about entitlement.
I’m certainly all for getting what’s out there, but I’d be interested to know your opinion on how you reconcile your entitlement post with your CARS action.
I’m certainly not trying to come to your site and crash, just interested. 🙂
Thanks again for the instruction on proper audio configuration!!
Very good question JaceFace, one I’ve face from my peers as well. My opinion of the CARS program is this: It should not have been done, even though it benefited me. It removes working vehicles from the market, preventing them from being passed down to those who can’t afford a new car. The dealer classified my old truck as a good starter vehicle for some teenager (which is what it was for me when I started driving). If you look at the details of the program, you can see what it’s intended purpose is. The intent is to remove “gas guzzlers” from the road, permanently.
I did not ask for this program, and if I had the power to stop it before it was put into law, I would have. I also did not wait for this program before getting a new car. The fact that I bought my new car at this time had a lot more to do with the fact that my truck needed about $2K in repairs/maintenance to keep it running than anything else. However, since the program was enacted, I justified my actions with the CARS program because I know that I’m going to be paying for it, and many other programs from which I will see no benefit, several times over in taxes. My skill set will put me in a pay scale higher than the majority of the nation, and thus means I’ll be paying much more in taxes than most, without seeing as much benefit as most. This is quite likely the only government program from which I’ll ever see benefit (I’m not counting the benefits mandated by the constitution from this list, such as defense). I’ve likely paid this much in taxes already over the years and I’m still a student!!!!
Despite how bad of an idea CARS is, at least one good thing came of it. It showed the nation that the government is incapable of handling a simple program without massively screwing it up.