Clunkers Program May End Up Screwing Over the Dealerships That Is Supposed To Help

At Downtown Ford Lincoln Mercury in Canton, Ohio, they love it, too. Lots of cash deals; few cases of bad credit; gross profit per vehicle up "a couple of hundred dollars."

At the Grand Blanc-based Serra Automotive Group, with 38 franchises at 21 locations in six states, the boss appreciates that the controversial federal incentive program has consumers thinking cars after a year of mostly doing anything but.

Sales are booming. Inventory is thin. Customers are swarming showrooms, hungry for sweet, stackable deals (cash back from the automakers plus a cash-for-clunkers rebate of as much as $4,500) that can cut the price of some eligible vehicles in half.

All good, except for one thing: Many dealers still aren't getting paid. The bureaucratic maze is ridiculous: 156 pages of regulations governing 13 pages of forms are mated to a computer system that mostly is failing to accommodate demand from dealers across the country.
 

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