I think the whole program is like a coupon from the sunday paper - it's a nice savings if it's for something you were already about to buy, but their goal is to get you buy something that normally you wouldn't.

If you were already in the market for a new car it's great for you. If you weren't, then I think you'd be better off without a new car payment and higher insurance rates. Assuming you buy a comparably sized vehicle, trading the 16-18 mpg you get in a monty for a 20 - 25 mpg in a newer SUV is going to take a long long time to offset the car payments you'd get. Now, if you traded a suburban for a prius that may be a different story! But even if you are trying to be green, the amount of energy/pollution that goes into the manufacturing of the new car is huge! It would be way greener to keep the older car on the road with a little worse fuel economy, provided it has a cat and a working emission control systems.

I'll keep my old cars - I can open the hood and recognize all the parts! Plus I don't need an engineering degree to change the spark pugs.

BTW, those of you claiming the bailout is for the unions is totally unfair. While unions (like everything else) have both good and bad sides, no welder on the assembly line in detroit decided to keep make hummers when the public clearly wanted smaller, fuel efficient cars. Management needs to take their share of the blame too. And it's a big share!