Stop, go, wait: Dealers carsick

By Jeffry Scott

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Go wheeling your gas-guzzling clunker into a car dealership this morning expecting to cut a deal worth as much as $4,500 toward a new ride that gets better than 18 miles a gallon, and you better think twice.

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AP At least two metro area auto dealerships chains — Jim Ellis, and Steve Rayman — have jammed the brakes on Cash for Clunkers until the Senate votes later this week to add another $2 billion to the clunker fund.

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Or, at least call first.

At least two metro area auto dealership chains — Jim Ellis, and Steve Rayman — have jammed the brakes on Cash for Clunkers until a Senate vote, expected today, to add another $2 billion to the clunker fund.

“We don’t want to put any more liability on the road,” said Jimmy Ellis vice president of Ellis Automotive Group, which operates 12 dealerships in the Atlanta area and has shelled out about $800,000 in clunker deals, without one fed cent back, yet.

“We’ve got over 200 clunker deals already, and we’re not being guaranteed will be paid past Tuesday, so we’re stopping,” said Ellis, “until the Senate votes to add more money.”

Others, including Fred Brillanti’s Dodge Chrysler dealerships in Atlanta and Athens are still “rolling along and rolling the dice and making clunker deals,” said Brillianti Wednesday. “We’re confident the Senate will vote to give it more funding and the government will back the deals we’ve already made.”

Brillanti said his dealerships have made about 70 clunker trades so far.

The Obama administration said Monday it would honor all “clunker” deals that were in the pipeline before Tuesday midnight.

Senators late Wednesday agreed to vote today on extending the program, and Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats have enough votes to pass the bill.

When it launched the $1 billion program the Obama administration expected it to stretch to November. But dealers and customers appear to have gone through the cash in about the first ten days of the program, which started July 24.

The Transportation Department said Tuesday it had received about 157,000 dealer applications for funds totaling $664 million, and there’s a backlog of hundreds of thousands of online submissions still in the pipeline.

That was more ambiguity than some dealers, such as Atlanta dealer Steve Rayman, could take. Rayman owns 13 dealerships in Georgia and Florida and has been an outspoken critic of the way the program is set up, predicting it would run out of cash within 20 days.

“We’ve taken enough chances and we don’t want to take any more until the Senate votes for more funding,” he said Wednesday. So far, he figures he’s on the hook for about $1 million in clunker cash, and not a cent yet has been reimbursed.

The manager of Rayman’s Chevrolet dealership on Cobb Parkway, Jeff Warhola, said at least the government’s clunker computer system isn’t as clunky as it was last week when the dealer couldn’t get a single submission for reimbursement filed.

“At this point we’ve gotten in,” he said. “All our applications say ‘Pending Review.’ But there is no status of ‘paid’ or ‘rejected.’” Dealers have been told once their submissions are approved they’ll be reimbursed within 10 days.

The Associated Press contributed to this report