Unless the dealership is paying someone some mad money to handle the clunker program, it shouldn't impact the selling price. At our dealership, we have 2 guys who are assigned to handle all reimbursements with the government. They are paid a small flat fee, but the fee is so minimal that it doesn't affect the profit of the deal.

The only reason how I can see that this program will affect final negotiated price is that the dealership you're going to is a small dealership where they don't have the money to front the clunker deals (since the government is REALLY SLOW PAYING us back) until they are reimbursed, or they fear not getting paid because of their past shady practices.

There is a LOT of paperwork for the dealership to process the rebate and get their reimbursement. And we are SLOWLY getting funded. Our 2 guys who handle the reimbursement stayed at the dealership to 4AM a few times just to get their paperwork processed and try to get as much of them billed as possible, and we're still not getting funded...

As far as what you're trying to accomplish, paying $1000 over invoice, that all depends on the dealership you're going to. If a few dealerships tell you they're not discounting, I would believe the popular consensus. And remember what I said above, the longer you wait, the fewer selections you will have.

The government is slowly funding us for the rebate. We forward all the necessary paperwork for the rebate, and then we WAIT our turn for THAT particular vehicle to get funded. It's a long drawn out process, that's why some dealerships won't even mess with it. It's not like we can send in an email of 50 deals and they send us all that money at once. Nope, we qualify them, then we send the paperwork in, and then they qualify us.

ah.....i see. Thanks Joe. If you dont mind me asking, what dealership are you from?

thanks Joe!

My dealership sold like 17 cars last night lmao!
They said this program has helped them make the benji's!

We have 390 unpaid deals that have been submitted to the government. 10 of the 400 we have been paid on from the government. We are about to not accept anymore CARS deals. The government is taking too long, and it is tied up $1,000,000.00 in CASH! Good thing we have great cash flow and money in the bank, but I feel for smaller dealers. This has been the most successful catastrophe in the Automotive Industry.

I understand but it has been too long! And I am not talking a week or 2 weeks, but over a month to get paid is too long. Especially for dealers that one or two dealerships that need that cash to pay payroll,bills,ect..

Why do you call it the most Successful catastrophe? Cause its good for bigger dealers and bad for smaller dealers?

I wonder if this deal is helping out import car dealers or american car dealers more.

I call it that becuase it has boosted the auto industries retail sales numbers. But it has been a nightmare with the website crashing, running out of money in 3 days, time consuming paper work, bs rules, and no one is getting paid. But the program did sell cars, just with fake money, and I don't see the problem, they have been printing fake money for sometime. Why not print some more for the dealers that are waiting paitently and have done everything they have asked of us.

I'm at Joe Myers Toyota in Houston, TX