An inquiry

The recent popularity of the "Cash for Clunkers" program in the United States has prompted thorough reviews of the way aging cars are treated in general. Many activists claimed the Cash for Clunkers program amounted to little more than death panels, where bureaucrats got to decide which cars lived and which cars died. Others claim that the dismantling of certain cars was done following a cost/benefit analysis that was transparent and clearly the right thing for society to do.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not interested in getting to the truth, and so we have been performing our own investigation into the alleged mistreatment of older cars. We visited (clandestinely, of course) three separate nursing facilities for older cars and what we found may be shocking, so if you are easily shocked or appalled, please read no further.

Most people believe that when they drop their aging car off at a nursing facility that the car will receive regular maintenance and cleaning and that the car's problems will be mitigated in such a way as to help it die with dignity. Most people are wrong. At least in the three facilities* we infiltrated the truth is much less dignified.

In order to get inside, we found three older cars that were donated by supporters, and rigged them with microphones, video cameras, and a few more specialized sensors before dropping them off. In each case, the first thing that was done to the car was a thorough inspection akin to a strip search intended to find any parts that might be able to be extracted and sold to repair shops. When such parts were found they were immediately removed from the vehicles and replaced with barely-functioning parts that caused the vehicles a great deal of pain. After this initiation into the nursing home, the aging cars were then unceremoniously parked in an uncovered lot behind the home. When we went back to visit our car we were told it was being cleaned at the moment and we would have to wait. Our surveillance revealed that during our wait the car was taken from the lot, cleaned up, and brought to a garage where we were finally allowed to visit it.

If this were the extent of the atrocities we observed, however, we would have been shocked but not yet appalled. As it is, we were so far beyond appalled that we're not sure what to call it. We intentionally did not visit our cars for several months, and our surveillance revealed that the workers began to remove more and more parts, sometimes replacing them with duct tape.

What surprised us most about the "care" our cars received was that as parts were being removed and replaced, more often than not the replacement parts would be constructed from or installed with hole punches and brads. We haven't established a firm link with the Parent Corporation or the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch just yet, but in a situation this evil we are not surprised to find evil office products being used.

After several months we went back and asked to see our cars, but were told that they had expired. We knew from our sensor data that this was not the case, and that they were suffering in silence in the back lot. We resolved to break into the lot and retrieve our cars before it was too late, but in one case the car was crushed alive before we could retrieve it.

We don't think there is cause for widespread panic, but we do want to let people make informed decisions about their aging cars.

*Although the facilities were striking in their similar approaches to aging car care, they were run by ostensibly different entities. We won't mention the names of the homes here, but if you are curious please contact your local GPD office for a request form (2245-K Request for Information about a GPD Investigation)