Cash for Clunkers

The Cash for Clunkers program is bringing out the stupid, the incompetent, and the crooked among the car dealers.

I have a '94 Chevy Van that I was going to trade in via the Cash for Clunkers program. I might still do it, but it won't be the deal I orginally thought it would be.

I had a deal in place with Schofield Hyundai in Wichita for a Hyundai Accent. It was a cash deal plus the Cash for Clunkers trade-in. It was a slight problem because I wanted cruise control which needed to be added by the dealer, the model doesn't come with factory cruise control. I wasn't in any big hurry to close anyway because I thought we should wait until the final Cash for Clunkers rules were published. So we made an appointment to close on Saturday.

On Thursday I asked the dealer if the car was ready yet. That's when he gave me the news that they weren't going to do the installation until after we'd closed, so they wouldn't be stuck with the modified car if the deal fell through. But, he said they'd give me a loaner car for the 2-3 days it would take to make the installation.

I wasn't real happy about handing over a few thousand dollars cash for a car that didn't exist yet, but I went along.

Saturday was really fun.

Then it started. I showed up on time and asked for the salesman. Then I waited around the lobby a while and finally the sales manager (not the salesman) came out and asked me to come with him. He walked across the lot to another building (a building for their GMC dealership) and asked me to sit down in the lobby and wait. Then he just walked off, no conversation, no explanation. So I waited some more.

Eventually some guy came out, not the salesman, not the sales manager, some guy I'd never meet. We went to an office and he started going through my documents to satisfy the requirements for elibiblilty for the Cash for Clunkers program.

This is were things started looking hinky to me. I had the title, proof of insurance for the last 12 months, and I also needed proof of registration for the last 12 months. My documentation on that part was a littlec convoluted.

I had current registration -- since an April renewal. But Oklahoma didn't provide me with a copy of last years registration, only the current. But they'd issued new plates in April and the old plate number was on the registration slip. And I'd made a photocopy of the old plates.

That was proof, but a little indirect. But the guy didn't even blink at it, he was in a hurry to move on to the next item -- the title. He grabbed the title and went and made a photocopy. Then he wanted me to sign the photocopy of the title over to them. Thqat's when we hit a brick wall.

I told him I thought we had some other things to clear up (I wanted to make sure the loaner car had A/C) before I signed the title and he started some mealymouth nonsense about he was only asking me to sign a copy of the title. Well duh. The title the state gives me is called a copy. He doesn't even ask what other thing(s) I wanted to clear up. He just wanted me to sign my tradein over to get me committed.