I’ve never had a car that got less than 27 mpg or so, and none of them were really econoboxes or expensive (and none of them were new).

I use junkyards for a lot of replacement parts for our vehicles. Thanks a lot for trashing perfectly good cars. ***holes.

It is almost as if he had this cash for clunkers scheme in mind when he wrote.

2 tons of automotive steel in junkyard = economic stimulus, environmental salvation.

Evil Red, don’t give them ideas about breaking windows.

@Jaime – AFAIK the program requires the cars get 18MPG or less, and the replacements get 20MPG or greater – so it’s worse than you think. Other than that, your analysis is spectacular.

“The heat of the operating engine then dehydrates the solution leaving solid sodium silicate distributed throughout the engine’s oiled surfaces and moving parts,” says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration publication. “These solids quickly abrade the bearings causing the engine to seize while damaging the moving parts of the engine and coating all of the oil passages.”

The results of this process don’t sound all that nice to dump into the environment. The comment about recycling is spot on.

All of the numbers are from 2007, which would be slightly down for 2008

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2007/vm1.cfm

There are 135.9 million passenger vehicles in the US. The average miles travelled is 12,293, and the total fuel consumption for passenger cars is 74,354,839,000 gallons. If you do the math, that works out to 22.47 mpg on a national average.

Let’s assume that all 250,000 cars in the program are “average,” and that they are replaced with cars that get 27.5 mpg (5 mpg increase). That’s generous, given some of the things I’ve seen about cars that are eligible.

So the average “clunker” burns (12,293 / 22.47) = 547 gallons of fuel a year; and the average “efficient car” burns (12,293 / 27.5) = 447 gallons of fuel a year; or a savings of 100 gallons per car.

So the entire program will save 25,000,000 gallons of gas a year; or .03% of the annual consumption.

If instead you use the total fuel consumed (for passenger cars, tractor trailers, SUVs and pickups) (176,106,247,000 gallons), then the annual fuel savings is .0142%.

Or on an economic basis, you are paying $1 billion to save $75m a year in fuel costs. That’s a 13 year payback period, even if you assume that those cars will be driven for 13 years.

What an absolutely contemptible program. “Compassion for the poor” my ass! The jackals in Washington need to be introduced to some rope and a tall tree.