I have been getting emails from consumers that are claiming that the EPA MPG rating are changing on www.fueleconomy.gov, day to day. For some, this meant that their car now qualifies. For others, their car now was disqualified.

This is SCARY.

I strongly encourage all dealers to print screen the fueleconomy.gov website when you look-up a trade-in and date and time stamp the print-out. You do not want to be in the middle of a data change that would disqualify a trade that you took in that once qualified.

Hopefully the NHTSA will address this matter this week on their dealer conference call. I hope someone brings this up.

Follow some consumer reports on this matter:

http://budurl.com/fu4t

The NHTSA Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) website had a number of updates today. On www.cars.gov we were able to view the beginings of the official Cash for Clunkers dealer directory. The directory can be found by clicking on the "Dealer Locator" tab on the top of the cars.gov website.

The purpose of the directory is to provide an easy way for consumers to see which dealers in their area have registered for the CARS program.

In theory sounds like a perfect way to validate which dealers have completed the required CARS registration process. However, the current design is a perfect example of the disconnect between required "data" and "consumer usable data".

The data that the NHTSA collected online from car dealers may not have included a pratical translation of their official corporate name to a retail business name a consumer would recognize. The other possibility is that the web designers are using the wrong data fields to display public data for the directory.

New Jersey Registered Dealers

Since I live in New Jersey, I did a search of all the dealers that were registered in New Jersey as July 25, 2009. Only 22 dealers were showing on the registered dealer list. The list includes a corporate name, corporate address and phone number.

Amongst these 22 dealers were these four cryptic businesses names:

• DFFLM LLC-104706 Flemington
• FITZGIBBON SMITH & SMITH LLC-85477 Washington
• FOULKE MANAGEMENT CORPORATION-85261 Mt Ephraim
• OCT PARTNERSHIP-82118 Toms River

There is no translation of a corporate name to the actual public dealership names represented by these corporations. So consumers will have to call the phone numbers associated with these corporate names to see who they are. My guess is that they will not take the time to call; this is bad for car dealerships listed above.

Who is OCT Partnership?

I called the phone number listed for OCT PARTNERSHIP and it was the number for Gateway Toyota. Why the NHTSA does not list Gateway Toyota in the directory, we don't know. We hope that as we bring this up in this post that someone in the NHTSA will move to make the dealer directory more practical for consumers.

In its current form, consumers may not find a dealer in the directory and assume that they are not registered. This would be a loss for car dealers that have a corporate name that differs from the retail franchise name. If someone was looking to see if Gateway Toyota was particpating, they would get the impression they were not particpating.

The NHTSA Olympian Task

The NHTSA and their IT staff have had an impossible task to implement a nationwide registration system for the CARS program in approximately 30 days. The updates today to the website, including a new Fuel Economy website is very commendable.

We are just concerned that the data presented in the dealer directory in its current form is not practical and could be harmful for dealerships that appear not to be participating.

Dealers affected by this data display should contact the NHTSA to correct this matter.

Automotive retailers have contacted us to express their frustration with registering their dealer for the NHTSA Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) also known as the Cash for Clunkers program. Due to online registration problems the NHTSA has moved the official start date of the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) to Monday July 27^th.

Car dealers have been trying to register for since early this morning with no success. Many have been unsuccessful given the sheer volume of traffic being directed to the NHTSA website. Slow response times and error pages are all most dealers have received so far. The registration pile-up seemed to ease a bit later in the day as some dealer registration Tweets were sent in to us.

Car Dealers Share Their Experiences

Although many dealers are expressing frustration, some seemed prepared for the hassle. Kevin Frye of the Jeff Wyler Automotive Family seemed to take it all in stride. According to Frye, “With 25,000 dealers all attempting to register at the same time, this is certainly not unexpected.”

Preston Auto Group in Maryland had begun accepting trade-ins in the beginning of July. Brent Durham, Internet Sales Manager, said the delay was disappointing. “Being that we started accepting trade-ins in the beginning of July, we were really looking forward to getting registered today so we could start the process of getting our refunds on Monday. Right now it looks like we will have to wait a few more days.”

Hagen Durant, General Manager of Classic Chevrolet in Texas also commented on his experience trying to register his dealership, “It seemed like the website couldn’t handle the volume of traffic it received or perhaps they just weren’t fully prepared. Now that we have the official guidelines, we can at least start accepting deals even though we couldn’t get registered. It’s a little bit of a burden on dealers, but I do believe once this gets going we will get the benefit from it.”

We Predicted Server Bottlenecks

Many dealers across the nation are undoubtedly experiencing the same frustration as thousands try to register. We had concerns over how the NHTSA would register the thousands of dealerships across the country in one day. Right now, there is no other choice but for dealers who have been unsuccessful at registering to keep trying over the weekend.

Mazda sent a note to their dealers that on Friday night at midnight the NHTSA dealer registration website would be taken down to undergo a server upgrade. The new web server is designed to handle thousands of simultaneous connections. We hope that this new server can handle the load.

Car dealers and consumers are invited to follow the real-time Cash for Clunkers blog update on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cashclunkers.

Update: July 24, 2009

The official NHTSA website (www.cars.gov) is now posting information advising consumers that the Cash for Clunker program will start on Monday July 27, 2009. The NHTSA as recent as yesterday had indicated that dealers could start the program today.

Here is the exact wording:

"Starting on July 27, consumers will be able to take advantage of this program and receive a $3,500 or $4,500 discount from the car dealer when they trade in their old vehicle and purchase or lease a new one."

The Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), is operated by the NHTSA which was given the task of implementing the provisions in the Cash for Clunkers bill. The bill was signed by President Obama in June and consumers must be patient while the NHTSA sets up the program. The process has not been easy and this new delay is par for the course.

Why This Delay?

There is no specific reason given why the date was moved from today to Monday but we have a few thoughts:

• The 136 page page Final Rules document was just published this morning.
• The Final Rules document has policies and procedures that need to be put in place for dealers.
• Dealers have to give clunkers a lethal injection before sending them to the scrapyard.
• Dealers around the country are reporting that the NHTSA registration website is crashing which is preventing them from registering.
• Dealers have reported getting wrong registration codes on their official letters this week.

Last week we predicted that the NHTSA web servers may not be able to be sufficiently tested in advance of having 30,000 dealers hit their site. Chaos reigns today at car dealers across the country.

Dealers are telling us that they will be taking in trades and deals today and through the weekend regardless of this recent announcement.

Follow Me on Twitter

So, the drama associated with the Cash for Clunkers bill continues. Please follow our updates on http://twitter.com/cashclunkers throughout the day for updates on the developing story.

The NHTSA has created a website to support car dealers participating in the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) aka Cash for Clunkers.

Click to visit the NHTSA dealer website for cars program: Dealer Website

The NHTSA dealer website has some new information for car dealers as well as an upcoming section for CARS Marketing material compliance. The section is for dealers to understand and implement CARS Advertising Guidelines.

The dealer blue website will be very important for car dealers to bookmark during the Car Allowance Rebate System operating timeframe. I think that the NHTSA picked a blue color scheme for the website to differentiate it from the consumer facing website which is bright green.

Do the colors mean that consumers will see all the green and car dealers will be crying to blues with all the paperwork and compliance issues that the program represents? Time will only tell.

The website has a Dealer FAQ Page as well as well as a graphical depiction of the the dealer NHTSA interaction will look. View Images.

Dealers should see their official registration letters in the mail this coming week. The letters were mailed on Friday July 17th from an Oklahoma mail facility.

Mazda sent a letter to their dealers today outlining the process for online registration for the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) which will start on Friday July 24, 2009. Mazda confirmed what we reported yesterday that the NHTSA dealer registration letters were placed in the mail today from an Oklahoma City postal facility.

In the letter much of the instructions were known to us but there were two points that stood out as new instructions:

• Even though dealers may get their registration letters prior to July 24, 2009 they will not be able to login and register until the 24th. This will give all dealers ample time to make sure that the postal service delivers their letters which will be coming from Oklahoma.
• All dealers who seek to use the official CARS logo, which is lime green, in any promotional tools or advertising campaigns have to get prior approval from the NHTSA. Dealers were advised to contact Kristen Allen at the DOT to submit their intended use of the logo for approval. Mazda indicated that dealers will need to give the DOT a few days to review the submitted marketing materials.

Marketing Mayhem or Simple Compliance

We are very glad that we have avoided using the CARS lime green colors and logo on our blog since we do not want to confuse consumers with the official government website located at http://www.cars.gov. We have also included clear markings that we are not a government website.

I am proud that our blog is #1 consumer to consumer resource and dealer to consumer portal for the Cash for Clunkers bill. We had 70,000 pageviews just today!

However, there are a number of websites that have been created that use the lime green colors and logo of the NHTSA program. I would assume that these marketing website will be asked to submit their designs for approval. I would predict that some websites will have to change their design.

The bigger question is what happens to qualifying car dealers that do not go through the logo approval process?

We clearly understand and support that the NHTSA is attempting to avoid consumers from being confused or scammed by receiving a "government looking letter" that has the CARS logo and NHTSA logo on the outside when in fact it is coming from a local dealer. This would be a terrible setback for the program.

Dealers are advised to heed the advice of the NHTSA to keep the program free from potential problems and misuse of the official government CARS and NHTSA logo.

Dealers should submit their artwork for review immediately to Kristen Allen. If dealers need the email address for Kristen Allen they can call the NHTSA hotline since we did not want to publish it on this blog. Call - 1-866-CAR-7891

As of today, the NHTSA hot-line indicated that official dealer registration letters have not been mailed. With over 20,000 new car dealers predicted to be mailed, the clock is ticking fast for NHTSA staffers. I hope their break room is stocked with caffeine.

If the NHTSA registration letters were mailed tomorrow on July 15th, we project that a majority of dealers would get the letters on Friday July 17th. That would give every new car dealer in the United states four normal business days to register for the NHTSA Car Allowance Rebate Program if we are to go by the projected July 24th start date.

When you look at the likelihood of this massive registration effort, the 24th seems impossible. We also have no confirmation when the letters will be actually mailed. Many questions on the implementation of the Cash for Clunkers bill remain unanswered.

To read what consumers are saying about the CARS program, check out our Cash for Clunkers blog which as a few hundred consumers comments.

Will the NHTSA be able to accommodate this rush of registrations? The dealer registration process will require the NHTSA to validate the information that is submitted by car dealers. You can also bet that a number of applications will not be properly submitted the first go round. This massive project dropped on the NHTSA in such a short timeline was unrealistic from the start.

CARS Final Rules By July 24th

The NHTSA has told car dealers that the final Car Allowance Rebate System rules will be drafted by the 24th but the likelihood of the program starting on July 24th with registered dealers is in doubt. Will NHTSA allow dealers to participate as long as their application is pending? No one seems to know at this point.

We will wait for the official rules to be posted on the only official website for the CARS program: http://www.cars.gov.

In the meantime car dealers will have to deal with the uncertainty of facts until next week and deal with the increasingly irritated consumer population who would like to purchase a car under this program. Consumers will have to act fast once the rules are in place because we predict that the $1 billion in cash will be gone by Labor Day.

The National Automotive Dealers Association (NADA) and NHTSA hosted a webinar today covering the law and rules associated with the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS).

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration CARS program was created by the controversial Cash for Clunkers bill that was signed by President Obama on June 24, 2009.

Consumers have been getting answers to many questions about the CARS program on the only official NHTSA website located at http://cars.gov

However, my blog at www.cashforclunkersfacts.com has documented many consumer concerns and questions that still remain unanswered. The outcome of today's webinar still kept two popular questions unanswered. The third question, which was never submitted to this website, was brought up in the webinar and does pose an interesting inquiry.

Popular Consumers Concerns Unanswered

The webinar questions submitted covered many topics. Here are three questions that the NHTSA still has to issue a ruling on:

1. Can a parent who has a qualifying "clunker" use it as a credit toward a new car purchase that will be titled in the name of their child?
2. Can a consumer trade-in a qualifying "clunker" if it has a lien?
3. Can non-US citizens who own a qualifying "clunker" participate.

These three questions remained unanswered . The NHTSA said that their attorneys will be reviewing the law to determine the right course of action and to form a rule.

Funding Remains in Question

We surveyed a number of car dealers after the webinar and many expressed their concern that the CARS funding would run out by the end of August. Everyone was unclear of how additional funding may be secured. If this is the case, consumers who delay in making a decision could be left out of the program. This is not the first time we are hearing concerns about Cash for Clunkers funding.

Dealer Registration Clarified

Dealers learned today that all major OEM manufacturers have provided the NHTSA with their dealer mailing lists. New car dealers will receive a letter from NHTSA in the mail which will advise them how to register. The official letter will be part of the official registration process.

NHTSA has promised to keep automotive dealers in the loop as the law is interpreted by NHTSA lawyers and asked for their patience. The review process to implement a law and create operational rules normally takes a much longer time. Everyone at the NHTSA is doing the best they can to get the program rules in place by the end of the month.

We are releasing today the updated consumer inquiry results from our www.cashforclunkersfacts.com website which shows that Toyota leads consumer interest for new car purchases.

Since data collection started, Toyota has remained the leading brand on the CashForClunkersFacts.com website for new car interest. The data is based on consumer requests to have a local car dealer call them about purchasing a new car with a qualifying trade-in with the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS).

The top five most popular brands are Toyota, Honda, Ford, Chevrolet and Nissan.

The consumer interest in the Cash for Clunkers program is getting red hot. If your dealership is not preparing for the Cash for Clunkers program start date in Late July you better get moving.

A number of consumers have been holding back to purchase a new car as they waited to see if the bill would pass the House and Senate votes.

The bill is now signed and a law so dealers can start to prepare and educate their staff on the program. Dealers should go to http://cars.gov, the official dealer registration website for the voucher program.

The big problem for car dealers is that while the program starts officially July 1st, the NHTSA is stating that the program will not be implemented until Late July. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is calling the program Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS).

Car dealers will have to prepare for the "float" of monies that will be due to them as cars are sold. A car dealership selling 100 cars in the first 30 days could have close to a half a million dollars owed to them if the CARS takes longer than 10 days to pay them back. Aside from the money float issues, dealers need to prepare for the storage and salvaging of the cars that are traded.

The process and paperwork has not been defined for qualifying trade-ins yet so it looks like dealers will have to stockpile these cars until it is clear what paperwork and validation must be in place before the car can be scrapped. Insiders say that the approval process will not be immediate.

Cash for Clunkers: Holiday or Headache?

For a sales professionals in high demand brands (see below), Cash for Clunkers will be a holiday celebration. For dealer principles, this will be a compliance headache as well as added liability. From over 10,000 data points collected from www.cashforclunkersfacts.com the top 10 brands that consumers have indicated they will buy are:

1. Toyota 18.2%
2. Honda 14.7%
3. Ford 13.3%
4. Chevrolet 10.1%
5. Nissan 5.4%
6. Hyundai 4.1%
7. Dodge 3.6%
8. Volkswagen 3.3%
9. Acura 3.2%
10. Kia 2.9%

To view the top 20 list visit: Cash for Clunkers Top 20 List. Toyota dealers have hit the jackpot.

Cash for Clunkers Website

The website the Pasch Consulting Group was asked to create to help car dealers and consumers with the Cash for Clunkers program has been a great success. We are responding to over 100 emails and 200 calls per day from people asking about the Cash for Clunkers program.

For car dealers, we have created a National Cash for Clunkers Dealer directory and a Participating Dealer logo to display on your website. The directory is voluntary of course and will not replace the registration that dealers will have to do with the federal government. To be added to the directory follow these instructions: 3 Steps for CFC Directory

We have also made up some free CFC banners branded with your dealership car brands, if you want to use them in email blasts or on your website. Logos and banners are free. Banners can be downloaded Here.

Consumers Aware of Cash for Clunkers Program

On Friday June 19, 2009 we had over 65,000 visitors to the www.cashforclunkersfacts.com website which confirms that consumers are aware and ready to purchase a new car with their Cash for Clunkers voucher. This will be at least a 90 day sprint and with additional funding, this could run much longer.

For additional information on the Cash for Clunkers program, read our FAQ sheet which gets updated almost daily. Cash for Clunkers Answers