I'm not a political person so this blog entry is going to be simply about how the Cash For Clunkers worked from my perspective as a car dealership employee.
First off, we were not very big players in the Clunker deals as Acura only had one sedan that even qualified. (The 2009 RDX SUV also qualified but nobody inquired for that one) The 2010 Acura TSX was the vehicle we had the only action on. We ended up doing about ten Clunker deals and, from my perspective, that was more than enough.
I seriously don't know what the dealers that were doing hundreds of these deals did. Each deal, when the computer system was working correctly, took about two hours to submit. Our last deal took almost ten hours with the system down and continuing to try to get it in. I finally took the paperwork home and got it submitted at 1am EST. For the dealers that did the hundreds, did they have to send all their employees home to each do five deals or did they have to work through the night?
The main problem, I feel, is that they rushed to get this program out and had no time to set up the infrastructure to get it done correctly. I know from my years of experience working in dealerships and on the web that websites take time to develop and implement. There's also glitches and problems with any new website. How did they expect a website this detailed, with hundreds of thousands of submissions, to be able to handle the flow in just thirty days. It was never realistic from day one.
Our first deal was submitted in July and we still haven't been paid on any of it or any others. Again, we only did about ten. What are the dealers that did hundreds doing with what could be hundreds of thousands of dollars outstanding. It seems like a lot to ask a business owner to accept especially with all the responsibility falling on the dealer and not the consumer. What if a dealer who did 100 Clunker deals gets rejected on 30%. That's an awful lot of money to risk losing. Was it worth it to him? I can't imagine how!
What are your thoughts? How did Cash For Clunkers effect you as consumers or dealers?
Thank You,
Mitchell Brenner
e-Commerce Manager
Precision Acura of Princeton
www.precisionacura.com
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