Car Heaven

[Flybrian]

Click this...

The Clean Air Foundation developed the Car Heaven program in July 2000 to accelerate the retirement of older, higher polluting vehicles by offering incentives.

To date, Car Heaven has successfully engaged over 34,000 drivers to retire their old clunkers. The Clean Air Foundation estimates that this has resulted in the reduction of over 25,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, 15,000 tonnes of Carbon Monoxide (CO), and 4,000 tonnes of smog causing emissions. In addition, Car Heaven has raised over $1.2 million for affiliated charities.

In Ontario donors are offered a free tow (valued at $200), and a choice of a min $60 charitable tax receipt for a local charity or if eligible $1,000 certificate towards a new GM vehicle.*

Donated cars are picked up and processed by a local member of the Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association (OARA) in communities throughout Ontario. Their members are committed to the environmentally friendly processing of cars and their parts - including oil, fluids, and tires.

If you are picking the charitable tax receipt as your incentive please keep in mind that, cars that are 12 years and older have a set value of $60. Cars that are eleven years old or newer are bid on by members of OARA. As well, exotic or low mileage cars are also bid upon. Your tax receipt will be a minimum of $60 or the bid value of the car, whichever is greater.

If you are picking the $1000 GM incentive your car must be 1995 and older, insured and registered for the past six months, and currently in running condition.

It actually seems like a good program, but it just sounds sad.

[Camino LS6]

I HATE these programs.

[Northstar]

If it's something that's actually worth repairing then I'd rather see the people repair the car, but if it's some junker like say a 95 Cavalier with 300k miles that's a total POS then I'm all for it.

[XP715]

We should start a program here on the site to get people to retire their old cars as well..... and donate them to us! I'm sure we could give them some sort of receipt for a bull$h! tax writeoff and we'd be putting older cars back into the hands of people that want them, namely us! It's win-win if you think about it. Well, for me it would be anyways

[Flybrian]

Yeah, that's the thing. You can kiss the '87 Omni or the rusted-n'-busted '76 Newport with a LeBaron hood and St. Regis doors goodbye, but decent cars...I doubt people would give those up.

[Guest YellowJacket894]

Hope this doesn't hurt my chances of finding a 9C1 Caprice if it goes Stateside.

(It better not.)

[FAPTurbo]

Hmm, reducing pollution, taking rustbuckets of the roads, helping charities, giving people breaks on new GM vehicles?!

Wow, we Canadians DO have problems that you Yankee Doodles will never understand.

[knightfan26917]

Yeah, that's the thing. You can kiss the '87 Omni or the rusted-n'-busted '76 Newport with a LeBaron hood and St. Regis doors goodbye, but decent cars...I doubt people would give those up.

I know I won't.

Frankly, some older cars get better gas mileage than some of today's SUVs....so, in some ways, it don't make no sense...he heh.

Cort, "Mr MC" / "Mr Road Trip", 32swm/pig valve/pacemaker

MC:family.IL.guide.future = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort/

Models.HO = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort/trainroom.html

"Something's wrong in the world today" ... Aerosmith ... 'Living On The Edge'

[CARBIZ]

It's mostly about carbon credits, Kyoto and getting older, dirtier vehicles off the road. I would submit that a 2006 Kia has cleaner emissions than a '95 Mercedes.

By the time most cars hit 10 years old, they are worth less than $1,000 on a trade. Most people don't have the time or patience to try and sell their '93 Crown Victoria on their own. With all the crazy people out there (you have to let them into your home and let them test drive your car) and the fact that half the respondants to your ad will be "curbsiders" and wholesalers anyway, trying to sell your own beater can be an exercise in futility.

This is a big deal for us. I did 3 of these last month alone! If you are shopping GM, Toyota and Nissan with your 1990 Civic, it gives us an edge.

Don't forget that up in the north, cars rust out much faster. Already, cars from the 1980s are getting rare up here on the roads, but I'll bet down in California and Arizona you still have a lot of 70s cars running just fine. The amount of salt we use in our damp cold/warm winters up here is obscene! Even Alberta and B.C. have more older vehicles around than we do.

[american_revolution_2005]

Our GM dealers have gotten better business since this came out. Our town is full of old junkers. So far, some of the cars gone to Car Heaven was a 77 AMC Concord, 79 Caprice, a couple of Chevettes, a 88 Toronado I believe as well as some others. They mainly get GMs because they are past customers who still want to buy something.

[zhawk]

It looks like a good program on the surface but a potential problem could exist underneath.

I can easily see some of the enviro groups pushing the gov't to expand things like this and make it harder and harder to keep old cars on the road and have this be the carrot. "see, get rid of your old car and get something new."

I've seen legislation to make renewing registration for older vehicles older, tightening emissions testing with no exemptions for classic and antique vehicles, among other ideas. And I've seen programs like this be suggested as an incentive to get people to pass those laws.

As the program above is described, no one will be getting rid of their classics. This also won't get rid of a lot of the older cars that really need help (or to be gotten rid of) since many of those are owned by people who cannot afford a new car, even with $1000 off.

[knightfan26917]

I've seen legislation to make renewing registration for older vehicles older, tightening emissions testing with no exemptions for classic and antique vehicles, among other ideas. And I've seen programs like this be suggested as an incentive to get people to pass those laws.

I've seen writeups about these, too.

Sad part is ... the cars being targeted (classic/antiques, etc.) are NOT the ones that are the main culprits ... as they are not driven daily (well, for the most part, anyway)......

Aye.

[Sixty8panther]

I HATE these programs.

164714[/snapback]

There are not enough angry smiles on this or any other forum

for me to show how much I hate this kind of B.S.

XP: Perhaps you can help me track down a 1932/3 Cadillac of

some sort to take off someones hands... I'd even take a V16

I hear those things polute and tend to be tripple the gas hogg

of any modern V8 car.

[CARBIZ]

Hey, guys, don't get your panties in a bunch. I can assure you that NONE of the vehicles I have taken in so far under the Car Heaven program will EVER be classics.

Recent examples: '95 Neon

'90 Civic coupe

'88 Chrysler

'90 Olds 88 - that was a tough one because it was mint

I thought about buying it, but my partner hates big

cars

Cars age badly up here. We rarely see anything older than 10 years old that isn't a wreck.

[zhawk]

CARBIZ-LIke I said as long as this goes no farther than it is currently set up, then fine. But these things do sometimes take on a life of their own. I can easily see people talking about how this is such a wonderful program but what can we do to make it better. That's where you get into the 'car crusher laws'.

It also, doesn't address my comment about the people who cannot afford a new car, even with the $1000 voucher. Their cars are likely to be in the worst shape and the worst polluting. This program goes nowhere to get those cars off the road. And knowing this, those people I mentioned above could easily be thinking about working some legislation.

[daves87rs]

It's not a bad idea....

But, sadly, it will happen sometime further in the future.....

Clean Air will win.

Expect to either get rid of them, or pay a lot more to keep em'...

Edited July 11, 2006 by daves87rs

[ToniCipriani]

Look at it closely... It's only $1000 that they are giving you. I'm pretty sure any of the cars that you guys are talking about worth keeping on the road is worth more than that. What's wrong of trying to keep that smokey 88 Corolla off the road?

And I'm pretty sure it won't become the law, because we have it already. That's what emissions tests are for.

[the_yellow_dart]

CARBIZ-LIke I said as long as this goes no farther than it is currently set up, then fine. But these things do sometimes take on a life of their own. I can easily see people talking about how this is such a wonderful program but what can we do to make it better. That's where you get into the 'car crusher laws'.

It also, doesn't address my comment about the people who cannot afford a new car, even with the $1000 voucher. Their cars are likely to be in the worst shape and the worst polluting. This program goes nowhere to get those cars off the road. And knowing this, those people I mentioned above could easily be thinking about working some legislation.

165273[/snapback]

It's not a bad idea....

But, sadly, it will happen sometime further in the future.....

Clean Air will win.

Expect to either get rid of them, or pay a lot more to keep em'...

165282[/snapback]

Ontario already has the "Drive Clean" program where you have to get cars between 4 and 20 years old tested to make sure they don't pollute badly. If they fail you have to get them fixed to get them registered again. So, this program won't be doing that much for the air anyways.

[Sixty8panther]

So far, some of the cars gone to Car Heaven was a 77 AMC Concord, 79 Caprice, a couple of Chevettes,...

164820[/snapback]

So much for "no future classics are being crushed"

Edited July 11, 2006 by Sixty8panther

[Flybrian]

So much for "no future classics are being crushed"

165398[/snapback]

:rotflmao: :rotflmao:

What a classic!

[Guest YellowJacket894]

:rotflmao: :rotflmao:

What a classic!

165402[/snapback]

Some guy: "Man this sucks. I wrecked my mom's 'Vette last weekend."

Other guy: "Your mom had a 'Vette?"

Some guy: "Yeah. A Chevette."

Hey, you know, it may be a piece of utter $h!, but at least it's rear-drive. Plus, you can stuff a big ol' V8 in one of those cars and have a killer drag car. (Remeber Hot Rod magazine's Chevette project where they stuffed a Cadillac 502 cu. in. V8 under the hood?)

[76ChevyTrucker]

Ahh, I'm glad I live in Alabama, no pollution test (which is why my truck does not and did not have a catalytic converter on it for the longest of times, nor does it have any other emissions equipment, not even a simple little EGR valve) but it is sad to see that some people are going to take this too far and start dumping everyone's cars no matter how old they are. I rather like seeing classic cars, even if they aren't in the best of condition.