Friday, August 7, 2009

Edmunds.com: Cash For Clunkers Driving Prices Up

Santa Monica-based Edmunds.com, the online automotive information site, said Friday that the Cash for Clunkers program is increasing prices on cars, and has resulted in shoppers getting less of a discount off sticker price for those automobiles. The online site said that, according to its numbers, discounts have dropped fairly dramatically on some models, such as the Dodge Caliber, where dealers were on average discounting prices off sticker by 11.7 percent before the program, and now are only discounting prices by 3.8 percent. Other cars with big before-and-after changes included the Jeep Patriot, with discounts dropping from 9.1 percent before the program, to only 3.1 percent now. The drop in discount pressure is good news for dealers, who have been suffering dramatically along with the auto manufacturers in the poor economy, but bad news for consumers trying to take advantage of the Cash for Clunkers program.

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