Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Is it me? Is it now that I've hit 50 I have to be a grumpy old man? Is it that I am just too factual and too clever to be taken in by all the hype?

I have just visited a local scrapyard. There must be a hundred cars there from the scrappage scheme - a scheme I don't believe in because it won't do what it's supposed to do - help global warming by reducing emissions. More emissions are now produced when the scrap cars are processed and when the new cars are built. The planet will still melt, but at least the car salesmen can feed their kids.

I was getting so angry at peoples' wastefulness. Their short sighted sense of gain, along with their general lack of understanding, being gullible, and probably thick too, makes them think that getting £2000 for their old car is worthwhile. The car they buy to replace it has already depreciated £2000 since putting it on the road, and the fact that the manufacturers have slowly increased the prices to compensate themselves for the scrappage loss (as shown on TV recently), means that the whole deal is just a money spinner for the car salesman, and that the customer is paying over the odds.

Among the more desirable not so common cars I saw today, all of which I could have got in and driven away -

Mk1 VW Golf
Mk3 VW Golf cabriolet
2 x VW Mk3 Golf
Audi A6 estate
2 x Audi A4 saloon
Ford Cougar
Toyota MR2
Jaguar
Jeep Grand Cherokee
3 x Hyundai Coupe
BMW 3 series compact
Range Rover

And remember that all these cars have to have an MOT, so somebody must have been using them until this scheme was introduced.

Has anybody here taken advantage of this scheme? - although I fail to see the 'advantage' in it.

Any more grumpy old men out there?

Nah John, I have issues with it as well. Lots of people have a short term vision of what they need. I'm just staggered at the amount of people that have got shot of perfectly good sub 2K cars which probably weren't going to cost their owners any real money & swap it for a depreciating Korean or similar tin-box. Which whilst having warranty will cost their owner a fortune in servicing & depreciation over the next x years. I suspect some of these people will be unable to cough up the repayments at some point in the future so these will be reposessed & then they be worthless as they'll have no service history & be on Wanli tyres etc.
Alos look at the VAT on a £8K car, around £1,000 so cost to the gubberment is .... nil!

Does it help global warming of course not! We are experiencing this in IT at the moment where Goverment "Green" legislation is just about to impact IT in the UK & the Goverment have displayed fantastic Ostrich like qualities that you couldn't believe. And when one of their spokeswomen was told that the legislation would drive IT abroad she was certain it wouldn't & got mildly upset when everyone laughed

A lot of the scrapyard stuff will have issues with emissions/ECU/ABS etc which to be fair could be an issue & why they ar there.

scheme was never meant to help the environment, it is simple old fashioned pump priming of the economy. basically it was a simple way of increasing consumption, the scrap will be very useful when economies begin to move upward and china needs more steel, that will help the balance of trade, government (of any colour) wins all ways up. No need to start any public sector building, as happened in the past recessions to pump prime the economy, and a way to sort some trade and debt as the recession lifts, environmentally friendly my arse.

it should have been introduced befor the demise of Rover and the rest of the UK production.

Phil

at that point the economy wasnt in terminal decline, and that illustrates another problem it actually causes, a balance of payments deficit. If you consider all the toytown cars people are buying they consitiute a large outflow of cash from the economy, any multiplier effect will be marginalised by te outflow of capital, so far from propping up the british economy what we are doing is propping up the asian "tiger" economies all of which will suposedly fuel the rise in economic growth with larger requirements for raw materials during the upturn, all well and good, but that means a service economy (now who has one of those????) will be the last in line for the upturn because of the working through of the monetary/capital inicreases. The economy (ours) when it was a real mixed economy (pre thatcher) would have recovered quicker but, as we are now primarily a service based economy (everything dependes on the square mile!!!!) we will emerge slower from any economic downturn. Germany, france japan the US all still actually make things, proper mixed economies, we have markets to sell them on or gamble against the price in 1 years time.

Sorry guys but Grumpy Old Man status begins at 40.
I'm already there and couldn't agree more with your points.
I've seen good cars go to scrap for the scheme and tin cans come out as replacements. I fail to see the shortsighted greed of the owners but have got too use to the 'I want it now' attitude.
Working in the construction industry with people and their silly ideas for extensions etc, you get sick of the waste of clients. Number of times you see a year old fitted kitchen scrapped because of a change of heart or 'the american fridge won't fit'. Too ridiculous for words but it's all greed and ignorance.

Rant over

Total agreement with dek'. The government gave up any interest in manufacturing long ago. Public borrowing hit a new record today for October. Over 8 billion. Were stuffed. And what of joe public with there shiney new toy town cars. Well my sisters Fiat Panda blew up again today. Two engines & a steering rack in 18mths. What a rip off. Top Gear said it was a good car. Not in my book.
I will stick to the eco car for now. New water pump came today.