Orange County Register

Remember Cash for Clunkers, last summer’s government-run program that spent $3 billion on giving car buyers incentives to trade in their old, gas-guzzling cars for new, fuel-efficient ones?

Turns our many a consumer took advantage of the program only to trade in an old, gas-hogging truck for a new, gas-hogging truck.

According to a months-long investigation by the Associated Press, the most common deals under the program replaced old Ford or Chevrolet pickups with new ones that got only marginally better gas mileage.

The report states:

The single most common swap — which occurred more than 8,200 times — involved Ford F150 pickup owners who took advantage of a government rebate to trade their old trucks for new Ford F150s. They were 17 times more likely to buy a new F150 than, say, a Toyota Prius. The fuel economy for the new trucks ranged from 15 mpg to 17 mpg based on engine size and other factors, an improvement of just 1 mpg to 3 mpg over the clunkers.

Owners of thousands more large old Chevrolet and Dodge pickups bought new Silverado and Ram trucks, also with only barely improved mileage in the middle teens, according to AP’s analysis of sales of $15.2 billion worth of vehicles at nearly 19,000 car dealerships in every state. Those deals helped the Ford F150 and Chevy Silverado — along with Ford’s Escape midsize SUV — climb into the Top 10 most-popular vehicles purchased with the government rebates. The most common truck-for-truck and truck-for-SUV deals totaled at least $911 million.

The government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is reviewing the reports, according to a spokesman quoted in the article, and any dealers that submitted paperwork for invalid trade-ins will have to return the money.

In all, AP analyzed 677,081 trade-ins through Oct. 16.

Among the startling statistics:

• In at least 15 deals in nine states, owners of large pickups cashed in old trucks for between $3,500 and $4,500 toward new Hummer H3 SUVs that got only 16 mpg.

• A driver in Arlington, Va., traded a 1999 Ford Explorer with 15 mpg in July for $3,500 toward a new $28,000 Jeep Commander that weighs about 4,700 pounds and gets 16 mpg.

• In at least 32 deals, drivers traded older vehicles for new large trucks — including versions of Toyota Tundras, GMC Sierras, Chevrolet Silverados, Dodge Rams and Ford F150 pickups — that got only 14 mpg.

Read the entire report.

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