No one would give Alec Roark $3,000 for his seasoned '97 Mercury Sable.
Photos by GUY REYNOLDS/DMN
More than 2,000 people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area have received $3,000 vouchers for their old cars this year through Air Check Texas. The program aims to get people into newer, cleaner vehicles.
"There's no way in the world I would have gotten that much money for that car," said Mr. Roark, 27, who works at a New Balance store in Fort Worth and lives with his wife and 6-week-old son in Arlington.
But someone did pay him that much just to get the Sable off the road: the state of Texas. Mr. Roark is one of about 2,150 people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area who have gotten $3,000 vouchers for their old cars in the last six weeks – an effort by the state to take motorists out of old, polluting cars and trucks and put them into newer, cleaner vehicles.
The program, which began accepting applications in December, is intended mostly for residents of counties around Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston that are not in compliance with federal clean-air standards. It is aimed at vehicles that are at least 10 years old – cars and trucks that officials say emit 10 to 30 times as much pollution as newer vehicles.
In addition, the program is limited to lower-income residents – applicants can earn no more than $30,630 annually for an individual or $72,390 for a family of five, for example.
The vouchers can be spent on new and late-model vehicles that cost $25,000 or less.
Mr. Roark said he and his wife had to be persistent and patient to get a voucher.
It often takes multiple calls to reach a real person at the main program number – 1-800-898-9103 – and the Roarks had to wait about a week for their voucher.
"It seemed like they were real understaffed," he said.
But the end result was well worth the hassles, he said.
On New Year's Eve, Mr. Roark and his wife traded their Sable for a new Pontiac G6 at Classic Buick-Pontiac-GMC in Arlington, one of about 300 area dealerships participating in the program.
"The Sable had about 100,000 miles on it and needed lots of work," Mr. Roark said. "It was great, a no-brainer."
His enthusiasm appears widespread. Since December, the North Central Texas Council of Governments – which is administering the Air Check Texas program in the Dallas-Fort Worth area – has received 5,000 applications. Fewer than half have been approved so far.
The office gets about 600 phone calls a day about the vouchers – way more than officials anticipated. The office has a staff of 10 to 15 people, said Lara Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the council of governments.
"This is the largest program and definitely the biggest thing we have ever seen," she said. "We've just been inundated with calls and are doing our best to keep up."
The initial phone calls are important to help the agency prescreen applicants, she said. People mainly need to prove that their income doesn't exceed program limits and that their vehicle is old enough to qualify and meets other qualifications.
"It takes a few days after that to process an application," Ms. Rodriguez said. "We had hoped to be able to do it in 24 hours, but because of the volume, it is taking a little longer."
No major improvements in service are expected anytime soon.
"With the response we've received so far, we expect the volume of calls to continue," she said.
Dealers participating in the program say approvals sometimes take up to two weeks, but otherwise they have few complaints.
Many say the vouchers have increased their business by about 10 percent.
"We have done 80 deals, and that's definitely more than I had anticipated," said Dane Minor, general manager of Freeman Toyota in Hurst. "It has truly been plus business."
Most buyers are opting for new Corolla compacts, Mr. Minor said.
"We can usually get them into the car for about $15,000," he said. "With a $3,000 voucher and a $1,500 incentive, nearly a third of the cost is taken care of right up front."
Likewise, Lone Star Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge has about 50 voucher sales completed or pending and is aggressively seeking the business.
"It's been huge for us," said Charlie Nixon, a former general manager of Prestige Ford in Garland who bought the dealership south of downtown Dallas about a year ago. "We have a Web site devoted to it, and about 80 percent of our ad budget is going on the program. If there's a hotbed for this program, we're in it out here."
About 80 percent of Lone Star's voucher customers choose late-model used cars, and like most dealers, Mr. Nixon is buying cars at wholesale auctions specifically for the program. For him, '05 Ford Tauruses with 60,000 to 70,000 miles on them have been strong sellers.
"That might sound like a lot of miles to some people, but when you're coming out of a 13- or 14-year-old car with 200,000 miles on it, this is a nice, fresh car, and we can sell that car for $6,000," Mr. Nixon said. "With the $3,000 voucher, we can put them into it for $3,000."
As he works to rebuild Lone Star, Mr. Nixon said the program accounted for up to 70 percent of the dealership's monthly used car sales.
"It is found money," Mr. Nixon said. "It is incremental business. The phone traffic was so immense that our switchboard couldn't handle it at first."
Like many dealers in the program, Mr. Nixon is trying to figure how long the vouchers will last. The state allocated $100 million for the program and has said it will continue to fund it. The program has $20 million for the 12-county Dallas-Fort Worth area this fiscal year and another $20 million is expected in the new fiscal year that begins in October, Ms. Rodriguez said.
The revenue mostly came from auto-inspection fees collected in areas like Dallas and Houston that don't comply with federal clean-air standards. Dealers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area believe the funds for this year will be sufficient to keep the program afloat until spring or early summer. That's a reasonable estimate, Ms. Rodriguez said, but it may be overly optimistic. "I think there's a good possibility that it will be spent in half that time," she said.
At Sam Pack's Five Star Ford in Carrollton, the voucher volume has been smaller, but general manager Brian Huth says he still considers the program a modest success. The dealership has sold 11 vehicles – eight used and three new, with most purchases in the $15,000 range.
"It's not a new profit center, but the thing I like is we can be a good corporate citizen working with the state to clean up the air and with people who don't have much money and need a better car," Mr. Huth said. "We've had a lot of calls about it, and that's worth its weight in gold."
Meanwhile, Mike Cory at Courtesy Nissan in Richardson says he hopes voucher sales will account for 10 percent of February sales. The dealership, which sells about 200 vehicles a month, has sold 10 vehicles on vouchers – most of them new and used Altima midsize sedans, Sentra compacts and a Rogue compact crossover vehicle.
"Ten in one month is probably 10 we wouldn't have had otherwise," said Mr. Cory, general manager of the dealership. "If we got 20 or 30 next month, that would be very nice."
Maybe more important, he said, "We think we've done some good."
"We saw an '85 Toyota pickup that was so rusted you could barely tell it was a truck," he said. "It was great to get that off the road."
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