not all old cars are "bangers" like the BBC want us to believe

Plus, you will not be able to look after the new model without a computer in your garage or paying a small fortune for it to be hooked up to one by the main dealer. What was that car advert the other day, for a car that steers front and back. I mean, what secondhand owner is ever going to want that, once it develops a problem. All this does is increase the overall churn rate of cars, which is of enormous benefit to the manufacturer and very little either to the average car owner or the environment.

Citroen Xantia?

Ian

Zactly. Surely, if the scheme was actually about emissions, this would be a major qualifying factor; if your "banger" was dirtier in some way than a new car? If a car, regardless of its age, passes an MOT then what's the problem? More govt. bollocks.

Si

There have been cars in the used market for ages with 4WS, the Galant and the Prelude spring immediately to mind.

"Mungo \"Two Sheds\" Toadfoot" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Don't forget that anything being traded in needs to be currently MOT'd - which'll rule out the majority of "gross polluters", since few people know (or care) their car is a filthy shed until it spectacularly fails the MOT and "will cost more than it's worth" to fix.

Of course, we won't go near the dicky logic that says that rather than pay a couple of hundred quid, they'd be looking to spend many grand...

It's not an environmental scheme though, it's another prop to the new car market.

How many people driving a ten year old car can afford a new one? If you are in that sort of market you will already have upgraded.

Eh???? Xantias don't have 4WS. The Activa has clever suspension though.

Honda Preludes used to have 4 wheel steering, as did some Mazdas.

Which doesn't detract from the point that they are unnecessarily complex and thus unnattractive once they are out of warranty and possibly owned by less well-heeled owners. Not to mention that the number of outlets that will be able to repair them will become increasingly restricted, placing yet more influence into the hands of the main dealerships.

Adrian, do you want to do this one?

Oh, what the heck. Have a look at

in particular at the section headed "Dynamic Safety". And a very nice system it was, too, if occasionally disconcerting.

Ian

Do you post to usenet via carrier pigeon?

Even ignoring mk1 RX7s there's been cars that steer front & rear for years, it's not rocketscience.

There's a rather large disparity between passing an MOT & new car emissions though.

Pete M gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

ZXs do have passive rear steering, though.

The Real Doctor gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Have to admit, I didn't think the Xant did, either. The ZX definitely did, and there were various stories that the s2 XM did, but if it did it certainly wasn't noticable - unlike the ZX.

That's what I think too.

The other thought I had was that the discount isn't really that great if you are considering a more expensive replacement car. For example at the £20000 mark, you can easily find pre-registered cars with delivery mileage for £8000 off retail and I don't think these qualify for the £2000 "government help". To my mind this makes the scheme almost pointless for all but the smallest most basic cars and only then if you have something that's only fit for the scrappy now and you were going to replace it with new anyway. I don't know anybody in that category.

It's an ill-considered policy reaction to media pressure (again!) IMHO.

It's a very clever sop to Mandelson and the industry - it looks like a scrappage scheme, it walks like a scrappage scheme, but it's almost entirely useless. Which is a good thing from an environmental point of view.

But if for some reason they see takeup is encouraging, they can always tweak it to be more useful.

If it /was/ useful, just think what it would be doing to the used car market. Someone mentioned the Ireland example... the cost of every old car would go up to 2000 pounds, which is not really ideal for those who run older cars because they can't afford anything else. That would be serious pain for the less well off end of society at a time they can least afford it.

Theo

Enough to make a difference sufficient to warrant the energy usage involved in the manufacture of a whole new car, and the disposal of the old one?

Si

Well the actual energy wasted is that saved by prolonging the life of the old one, & CO2 isn't included in the emissions to start with. If it's an old diesel or still got a carb, then probably yes, but I don't think that was the main point.

Perhaps I'm being picky, but it's not whether a person can _afford_ to buy a new car, but whether they _choose_ to spend their money that way.