Mechanics don't like cash for clunkers

When you tinker with the economy, especially with large amounts of cash, there will be unattended, as the Wall Street Journal reports.

Mechanics have to eat too.

Owners of automotive repair shops say the program to help invigorate sales of new cars is succeeding at their expense.

Jose Luis Garcia pours sodium silicate into a junkyard car engine to render it inoperable at a lot in Sun Valley, Calif., on Tuesday. The process destroys the car's engine in a matter of minutes.
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Bill Wiygul, whose family owns four repair shops in Virginia, said he has already had five or six customers decide against repairs. A man who sits on the board of Mr. Wiygul's bank traded in his car rather than repair it. "He'd been a customer at our Reston store since it opened," Mr. Wiygul said.

The clunkers program, formally known as the Car Allowance Rebate System, offers subsidies of as much as $4,500 to consumers who trade in older vehicles and buy new, more fuel-efficient models. The program was initially given $1 billion. That money was spent in one week.

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