£2000 towards a new car!

zedders

Anyone thinking of taking advantage of the £2000 grant being offered towards a new car? I can't help thinking the whole idea is flawed? Who has money to spend on a new car if the one they're got is ten years old in the first place?
I also heard that Honda are holding off registering cars under the scheme at the moment as there's a dispute still to be finalised over who pays the VAT with the government. This appears to show it to be another rushed idea, still not finalised by someone in Labour's 'Think Tank'! Could I buy a banger off autotrader for £50 quid and then put it towards a new car? Surely there's rules against this? Am all for helping the Car industry but as I say it seems flawed?
Maybe they should offer a £2000 Grant to put towards a new push bike if you chop in you your car? Now that really would help with carbon footprints & CO2 emissions, which is how they're trying to sell it.

STEFANOS4784

No, i don't have a car :P


Edit just read it properly and i think the bike idea is genius 8)

nasahapley

zedders wrote:

Anyone thinking of taking advantage of the £2000 grant being offered towards a new car? I can't help thinking the whole idea is flawed? Who has money to spend on a new car if the one they're got is ten years old in the first place?

Prior to its launch a lot of people in the car industry were saying the scheme wouldn't work very well for exactly this reason. A cynic might say that the government felt it more important to be seen to be doing something to help the industry (there's a lot of car factory workers in Labour constituencies), than for that 'something' to actually work. That's certainly what I think.

chuckcork

I like the new bike idea, trade in your old banger and get a road bike instead.

I think though if I showed up in the evening with something other than the wife's 07 Yaris I'd be in for it....

cee

saw in the papers this morning that this 'cash for bangers' scheme could be shafted before it een gets going....with reports of Honda and Ford already pulling out.

something about tax and who pays the tax for the £2000 discount....

beverick

nasahapley wrote:

zedders wrote:

Anyone thinking of taking advantage of the £2000 grant being offered towards a new car? I can't help thinking the whole idea is flawed? Who has money to spend on a new car if the one they're got is ten years old in the first place?

Prior to its launch a lot of people in the car industry were saying the scheme wouldn't work very well for exactly this reason. A cynic might say that the government felt it more important to be seen to be doing something to help the industry (there's a lot of car factory workers in Labour constituencies), than for that 'something' to actually work. That's certainly what I think.

I know of several who could take advatage of the scheme. Two of the people earn comfortably in excess of £50k per year (one of them at least double that) and one owns an A reg ford and the other a T reg Landrover who may well take advantage of the scheme. The wife's son in law also owns a P reg fiat and could use the scheme. A fourth, amusingly, owns a car that will be 10 years old in March 2010 so will miss out on the scheme which will run until 28 Feb 2010 at the latest.

Bob

dilemna

Or until the fund of £300 million runs out which works out at 300,000 cars :shock: if the government is contributing £1k a car and the manufacturer/dealer the other £1k.

Of course the government will recoup some of their £1k in the VAT from the sale and any road tax however large or small that may be and duty on fuel to put in it.

tlw1

A scheme designed for headlines rather than action - sums up the government!

ohlala!

What the government giveth, the government taketh. If you read the details in the yearly UK budget, the government gives with their right hand and takes with their left hand.

passout

I don't like this scheme - why not just distribute Wiggke vouchers?

Le Commentateur

I think that the scheme in this country is flawed because we buy so many secondhand "nearly new" cars compared to Germany.

nasahapley

beverick wrote:

nasahapley wrote:

zedders wrote:

Anyone thinking of taking advantage of the £2000 grant being offered towards a new car? I can't help thinking the whole idea is flawed? Who has money to spend on a new car if the one they're got is ten years old in the first place?

Prior to its launch a lot of people in the car industry were saying the scheme wouldn't work very well for exactly this reason. A cynic might say that the government felt it more important to be seen to be doing something to help the industry (there's a lot of car factory workers in Labour constituencies), than for that 'something' to actually work. That's certainly what I think.

I know of several who could take advatage of the scheme. Two of the people earn comfortably in excess of £50k per year (one of them at least double that) and one owns an A reg ford and the other a T reg Landrover who may well take advantage of the scheme. The wife's son in law also owns a P reg fiat and could use the scheme. A fourth, amusingly, owns a car that will be 10 years old in March 2010 so will miss out on the scheme which will run until 28 Feb 2010 at the latest.

Bob

I know of a couple of people in similar positions, so between us that's five people who might use the scheme. I (and I expect the car industry bods too), feel really daft for thinking it wouldn't work now.

Smokin Joe

The scheme only applies to people who have owned their banger for at least 12 months, so buying an old nail and using that is not an option. All new cars are heavily discounted by the dealer anyway (Only an idiot would pay list price) so the dealers will simply swap the £1000 scrappage discount with the one he would normally give anyway, and the government will recoup their grand on VAT and other taxes.

Their is only £30 million in the pot from HMG so when that runs out it will all be over. A daft idea that will do nothing other than have perfectly servicable cheap cars scrapped well before their time, and will artificially raise used car prices as the number available falls.

OffTheBackAdam

Just your normal goverment scheme, must be seen to be "Doing Something".
Unlikely to save anyone money, it'll be £2k off list prices, when you can get more than that off anyway.

berliner

£2000 for a scrapper, give me £1000 and you can have my old Corsa.

El Gordo

Until about this time last year I was running an 11 year old car, not because I couldn't afford a new one but because the old one worked fine and I could chuck a bike in the back without fear of getting grease on the interior.

However, the suspension died (it was a Citroen) so I was in the market for a replacement. If this scheme had been around would I have taking advantage of it. Unlikely I think - dealers are always open to discounts anyway and the car still had some value (a few hundred quid anyway) so I doubt it would have saved me any money. Besides, because of my running-old-car mentality, I bought second hand for a much less than a new car anyway, which is what I suspect most people in a similar position would do.

That's a rather long winded way of saying that I think the scheme is a waste of time. It's just headline grabbing.

Sirius631

I think the only people who will go for the scheme will be those that are sucked in by thinking that they are getting a bargin without doing the research.

1) You can get a better deal off a new car anyway.
2) If they are tempted by the 'green' credentials of a new car, the manufacture of a new car causes more CO2 emmissions than running it over its entire lifecycle, so they should continue to run the car they have until it stops.
3) The depreciation in the first two years is bigger than the £2000 saving, so it's better to buy a 2yo car.

ohlala!

If they are tempted by the 'green' credentials of a new car, the manufacture of a new car causes more CO2 emmissions than running it over its entire lifecycle, so they should continue to run the car they have until it stops.

The government put this scheme forward not to promote cleaner air. It's just so that they don't have to bail out the car industry for not selling cars.

I sometimes wonder what they do in the commons. Weren't they ordinary people as well before they got a position there? Or is it the famous English beaurocracy that brain washes them. Poor people.

Conservative always complain what Labour says, yet they never suggest any solution at all, all they say is "we must call for an election". Lib dem is just sitting in the middle of the argument between labour and conservatives. BNP just wants Britain to be independent, yet most comodities in the UK are imports, even bankers and company owners are thinking of moving their company and wealth to the middle east or asia.

on the road

zedders wrote:

Could I buy a banger off autotrader for £50 quid and then put it towards a new car? Surely there's rules against this?

No and yes.

The rules are you have to have owned the car for 1 year. By the time the year is up the scheme will have finished.

jc4lab

£2000 is what I usually pay for a replacement and still get 5-7 years use