April 02
Scrap the Scrap Scheme
James Ruppert writes:
As we hear the words scheme and scrappage mentioned so often I reckon its odds on that you and I will be subsidising the European and Japanese car industries with our hard earned.
Although the government may despise the industry, it is only just beginning to realise that rather a lot of livelihoods depend on it.
Their normal reaction would normally be to poke us with sticks in a showroom like direction, but instead all the panicking company car bosses are pleading for them to go a bit softer and bribe us with our own money.
Do you really think that someone happily running a reliable old dog of a car is going to suddenly be excited that it is worth £2000 and he/she will happily offset that against the £10K+ plus required to replace it.
No, Bangernomics is a way of life and buying a depreciating asset is just not on the agenda for those of us who believing in wringing the maximum amount of value out of our cars.
Even if you do buy new and are used to getting some money off then won’t those discounts disappear or be absorbed somehow into the new assisted price drop?
I can see the dealer using the scheme as the perfect excuse not to discount at all, but point to a big poster from the Dept of Transport and the Environment saying £2K for your old banger.
Of course the argument is that all this will get the car market turning over again problem, but although it may well help pay a sales executive’s salary, some business rates, VAT and corporation tax and all that, quite a lot of cash goes to those who actually make the cars in Europe or Japan.
So if we are going to have a scrappage scheme, why can’t their be strings attached?
The strings would be that only UK built cars qualify, so those models made by Honda, Nissan, Toyota and Jaguar Land Rover would be included.
Obviously it should also apply to Morgan, Bristol, Caterham and Aerial if we are going to play fair. Europe may not see it that way.
I say, scrap any scrappage schemes. Manufacturers should discount their way out of this and then have a big rethink.
It’s not our fault and in the words of Mr Brown, I don’t want to reward failure.
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