The new cars bought during the cash for clunker time are becoming clunkers and can be sold as such. The World does go round.
http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/average-age-of-road-vehicles
In 1995 the average age of a car was 9 years. In 2009 it’s 8 years. A car salesman told me the average car he’s seeing was being turned in at 13 years. Meaning you’re right that those cars are being turned in. But there’s still and will continue to be a shortage of cheap used cars due to Cash for Clunkers. It will probably take five or six more years for things to even out and the “cheap” car to return. But wages have remained stagnant while the purchasing value of a dollar has declined 60% since 2008. It will remain difficult for the underemployed young person to buy a car for the foreseeable future.
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Not really.
The older cars could be repaired. The newer ones have sensors and computers that break and then the car is junked.
I have had two perfectly fine cars that would not meet government standards that had to be junked because putting the money into them was fruitless.
We live in a planned obsolescence that his much worse than in the sixties and Vance Packard days.