Update:  Thursday July 16th – Letters to dealers should be mailed out tomorrow, July 17th so dealers should have the letters by Monday.  The CARS program is still set to go live on Friday, July 24th.

When the NHTSA hot-line was called today and asked if dealer registration letters were put out in the mail, the answer was NO. 

We predict that the size of the mailing will be over 20,000 pieces; addressed to new car dealers across the country.   Time is running out for getting the program started by July 24, 2009. 

If the NHTSA registration letters were mailed tomorrow on July 15th, we project that a majority of dealers would get the letters on Friday July 17th. That would give every new car dealer in the United states four normal business days to register for the NHTSA Car Allowance Rebate Program if we are to go by the projected July 24th start date.

The scope of this massive registration effort makes us think that a starting date of July 24th seems impossible.  There is no publically confired date for when the letters will be mailed.

Questions on the implementation of the Cash for Clunkers bill remain unanswered.

Will the NHTSA be able to accommodate 20,000 dealer registrations in a short period of time?

The dealer registration process will require the NHTSA to validate the information that is submitted by car dealers. Common sense would also indicate that a number of applications will not be properly submitted the first time around.

This gigantic project, dropped on the NHTSA’s lap, had unrealistic implementation dates from the start.

CARS Final Ruling

The final rules for the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) will be ready for prime time by July 24, 2009.   The odds of the CARS program starting on July 24th with registered dealers are very unpredictable.

Will NHTSA allow dealers to participate as long as their application is pending? No one seems to know at this point.

We will wait for the official rules to be posted on the only official website for the CARS program: http://www.cars.gov.

In the meantime car dealers will have to deal with the uncertainty of the process and without clear facts until next week. Car dealers are also having to deal with the increasingly irritated consumer population who would like to purchase a car under this program and has been told to wait.

Tags: cash for clunkers, dealer registrations, NHTSA registrations