23-01-2018, 11:35 PM
My problem with scrappage schemes is that it moves the decision about scrapping a car away from anything related to serviceability, road worthyness, emissions etc, onto a pure financial one.
Car company wants to sell a new car but can't sell as many as their targets demand.
Comes up with a variation on the discount scheme by offering scrappage.
Man gets old car and keeps for few months to get a net benefit discount, £6k I saw on a VW.
Result is that a sometimes perfectly serviceable car is taken off the road to get a discount on a massive people carrier that probably does fewer to the gallon and chewed up the value of a chunk of rain forest in environmental damage in its production. Let's face it, few people who actually drive a £3k car are likely to be in the market for a new one.
I heard that 32 Peugeot 205 GTIs were scrapped in the 2009 scheme. It didn't work then and I fear will be little more than a discount voucher for a car which would have been purchased anyway, just perhaps a lower model.
Let's be thankful that there weren't such schemes in the 50s for £20 off a new car, otherwise we might have lost a whole heap of £5 Austin Sevens everyone keeps telling me they paid for their cars as students of the day and we certainly wouldn't have the numbers out there today with the following and support they generate.
Andy B
Car company wants to sell a new car but can't sell as many as their targets demand.
Comes up with a variation on the discount scheme by offering scrappage.
Man gets old car and keeps for few months to get a net benefit discount, £6k I saw on a VW.
Result is that a sometimes perfectly serviceable car is taken off the road to get a discount on a massive people carrier that probably does fewer to the gallon and chewed up the value of a chunk of rain forest in environmental damage in its production. Let's face it, few people who actually drive a £3k car are likely to be in the market for a new one.
I heard that 32 Peugeot 205 GTIs were scrapped in the 2009 scheme. It didn't work then and I fear will be little more than a discount voucher for a car which would have been purchased anyway, just perhaps a lower model.
Let's be thankful that there weren't such schemes in the 50s for £20 off a new car, otherwise we might have lost a whole heap of £5 Austin Sevens everyone keeps telling me they paid for their cars as students of the day and we certainly wouldn't have the numbers out there today with the following and support they generate.
Andy B
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think!