Cash For Clunkers Stimulus: Start Your Engines

The Cash For Clunkers stimulus program starts today**! Officially known as Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), the federal program was officially signed into law today by President Obama.

The CARS program, modeled after similar successful European initiatives, is intended to encourage drivers to trade in their older, less fuel efficient vehicles for new cars with better fuel economy - for a credit worth up to $4,500 on new car purchases.

Cash For Clunkers puts cars, trucks, SUVs and minivans into several categories based on wheelbase size and weight, and the turned in vehicles will be crushed and reused rather than resold and driven again. Sticker proces for the new vehicles cannot exceed $45,000 - so no rebates will be given to those who choose to buy over-the-top luxury cars. The program begins today with a projected end-date of November 1, 2009.

This is all fabulous, however, if your used car is worth more than $4,500, participating may not make much financial sense.

More details about the CARS program here.

**Update: Seems the program start date has been moved to Monday, July 27. Thanks for the update, Jaxon. Check the cars.gov website for any further date changes!