August 31st, 2009 — 1:10am
It is not just the UK, that has a scrappage scheme and in fact it was suggested that the UK was too late to get in on the scheme and so many of European buyers had bought their cars with Germany and France benefiting greatly. However in certain areas they are now the point of reducing the amount of money available, (normally 2000 euros). Take Spain for example, with their scrappage scheme called the Plan E2000.
A typical area in Spain is Murcia and originally they added 500 euros to the 1500 euros agreed by the National Government and car dealers. But now they have run out, money after 1600 cars have been bought dispensing with the 8,000.000 euros set aside by Murcia. You do see a lot of older cars in Spain, as the weather is kinder to bodywork than the UK, so the Plan E2000 may have been a better deal out here, especially as used cars are more expensive than the UK, which is reverse to how it was 10 years ago.
It may be that Europe as a whole has done it’s bit to stimulate the new car market, it is just a shame that cars made in Britain don’t not seem to have sold as well as the German or Korean cars
1 comment » | general
August 3rd, 2009 — 4:27am
Yes I am back from holiday and the garage looks pretty good for the lads looking after it, except for a certain Mercedes that I might talk about in another post. Whilst away I asked one o the guys to look at a mini excavator, to see if a bit of heavy machinery would help move engines and heavy parts as such. The result being that this lad went to a salvage auction and bought this excavator thing that moves and lifts things. (wish I knew more).
As it came from a salvage auction there were things missing and the first thing he needed to do was source a set of rubber tracks for it to move. This may seem easy, but trying locating the right rubber tracks was a nightmare and when we did, it was not cheap. This was done whilst I was away, and now i have retuned there are a number of bits and pieces still needed. It seems these are called wear parts and have something to do with the bits that do not last forever. I have to ask why are they called wear parts, but no one has a good answer except they wear and need replacing from time to time.
It worries me that the cost of this machine is probably more that had i just bought a good second hand one with rubber tracks and wear parts in place. Never mind we live and learn and wouldn’t have dome it myself anyway.
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