Where clunkers go to die

Up at Bill Pierre Ford, where the federal "cash for clunkers" program has them ringing up new-car sales until 1 in the morning, a gravel lot is about to become a killing field.

If you trade in an old car to get $3,500 or $4,500 off a new one, it's the law that the old beater must be destroyed.

"We drain out the oil and pour in a chemical called sodium silicate," says Shane Pierre, grandson of the dealership's founder. "Then we start them up and run them until the engine seizes."

"It's liquid glass," adds one of Pierre's mechanics. "I can tell you — we're going to have some fun with that!"

Then he turns a little glum.

"It is kind of a waste," he says. "Look at that F-150 pickup over there. Not a dent on it."

I poke around what is a purgatory of mottled pickups and SUVs. There's a '94 Nissan Quest minivan with an NRA sticker. A black '87 Beemer. An '89 Ford Ranger pickup, blue and still true.

"I survived the Tonasket Family Barter Fair," it boasts, plaintively, on the bumper.

"Cars are like food," Pierre says. "They're perishable items. When they start to spoil, you throw them out."

I suppose that's true. Though it's also true we get more attached to them than we do the leftover ravioli.

I am a clunker driver. My current one — a 1983 Volvo station wagon, 175,204 miles — is, believe it or not, too old to qualify for cash for clunkers. It's such a clunker it has graduated, in the eyes of Congress, to being "vintage."

So I'm biased. But of all the controversial aspects of this program — that it's borrowed money, a giveaway to the few, another bailout of the car companies — the one that rankles me is the mandatory destruction of the old cars. Regardless of whether they've still got some kick left in them.

Take Damon Ogle's 1992 Chevy Cheyenne pickup. It's got 206,000 miles on it. But it's one of those old trucks that has had its oil changed with a regularity the faithful reserve for going to church.

Ogle swapped it out for a new Ford F-150 pickup. Because both are trucks, the uptick in gas mileage from 15 mpg to 17 earned him $4,500 from taxpayers off the new truck's price.

"I feel a little bad about letting this one go," he said, patting the Cheyenne's haunches. "The transmission was making a noise. It wasn't starting reliably. So I had to move on. But somebody could have gotten some more use out of it."

Pierre said trucks like Ogle's are the exception. He showed me clunkers like a rusted-out Lincoln Mercury that should have been barred from the roads.

But there were also Chevy S-10s and Ford Rangers — useful work trucks that looked in better shape than the car I'm banging around town in.

Your view of all this depends on where you sit.

"We're having a hard time getting any cars right now," said Scott Sefrit, manager of Wild West Trucks on Lake City Way, up the road from Pierre. "I think there are a lot of nice cars being destroyed that we could sell."

I get that the clunkers are gas hogs, and big polluters to boot. But is it really green to throw away stuff that works?

"We Buy Anything," reads the sign at C&J Auto Sales, also on Lake City. Anything?

"Yep, anything," says Cory Thal, owner. "It's like a form of recycling. If we can't resell the car, then we might part out the engine, the transmission, all the rest of it."

What does he think of cash for clunkers?

"I think giving people a gift because they drive a piece of crap, and then encouraging them to go further into debt, is the kind of thinking that got us into this mess."

He's got a point. On one level, there's no doubt cash for clunkers has worked. It has stimulated us. But by its very nature it's about the short run. Chuck the old. Buy new. Pump up a little bubble, a consumer rush.

It's as if stimulus has become its own industry. So you've got to wonder: When this one is spent, what stimulus scheme will save us next?

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.