Here’s a fun one: You’re a car dealer trying to get a bunch of clunker sales processed in the last, oh, five hours of the program when the government’s computer system crashes. Was it too busy insidiously taking over the private computers of American citizens and passing the information on to foreign governments? Automotive News [sub] won’t say.
“To better meet the high demand we’re experiencing, we have temporarily shut down the service so we can expand our capacity to more quickly serve your requests. Please visit the site at a later time. We apologize for any inconvenience,” is the website’s current position, according to dealers quoted in AN. Having endured the odd server meltdown here at TTAC, we sympathize. Popularity has its downsides.
The NHTSA’s official response sounds a familiar refrain in the web era. The problem was “related to the substantial increase in capacity that the department is bringing online to review transactions and process payments to dealers,” according to spokesfolks. They claim the problem has been fixed.
Tomorrow’s AN headline today? “Dealers report masses of unfiled clunker deals, lawsuit/bailout pending.”
“To better meet the high demand we’re experiencing, we have temporarily shut down the service so we can expand our capacity”
Yep, typical government.
“We apologize for any inconvenience.”
Yep, typical bureaucracy. The proper thing to say is “we apologize for the inconvenience.”
Golly, such an unexpected rush for a big government giveaway…who’da thunk it?
Pretty funny that the government of the largest single economy in the world can’t run a website!
Seriously!
If you are a small company and are “slashdotted”, I can understand. The US Gvmnt has no excuse(s)
new caledonia
“We apologize for any inconvenience.”
Hmmm, I got the same msg from TTAC this
afternoon.
@Gregg: You got what you paid for; taxpayers rarely do.
“To better meet the high demand we’re experiencing, we have temporarily shut down…”
Can’t hardly wait for them to run the medical system! Heart attack victims can rest easy… or maybe in peace.
When you are dying, and your doctor is trying to read your (electronic) medical records (and authorization to treat you), the last thing that you will hear is:
“To better meet the high demand we’re experiencing, we have temporarily shut down the service so we can expand our capacity”
This is funny:
“related to the substantial increase in capacity that the department is bringing online to review transactions and process payments to dealers,”
Yes, they were so busy paying dealers that the website just couldn’t handle the traffic of a $3B gov’t program.
This should come as no surprise to anyone. What is funny is that it’s happening to car dealers!! Hah!
Karma’s a bitch.
Yeah, yeah, there are some good dealers out there, but the majority are really bad.
I’m still wondering how this is a grand success. THe government subsidizes the initial depreciation of new cars while enslaving dealerships into destroying a million cars. All of this for 3 billion dollars that we don’t even have. That’s 10 bucks from every human in this country. Including the illegals.
When did the government become a clearing house for cars and trucks which have a resale under 4500 dollars and get bad gas mileage?
Dealers are going to get screwed, count on it. They don’t give one turd if a dealer has to eat a few dozen clunkers. Even if the engines are not blown, most of the cars and trucks are not worth 4500 on the lot or auction. I thought dealers were smart negotiators?
“To better meet the high demand we’re experiencing, we have temporarily shut down the service so we can expand our capacity to more quickly serve your requests. Please visit the site at a later time.”
Makes about as much sense as…
To better service high traffic volume we’re experiencing, we have temporarily shut down the interstate so we can expand our lane capacity to more quickly serve your driving requests. Please visit the interstate at a later time.
A concept that no legitimate business could survive on. Purely the domain of government indifference, stupidity, and incompetence.
Then again, it did probably stop thousands of last-minute sales that our grandkids will not have to foot the bill for. Good show. Carry on.
The computers are back up and the filing deadline has been extended until noon tomorrow, though any deals still need to happen today.
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/10589582/1/dealers-get-clunkers-extension.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
Hmmm…half of me believes that the computer “shut down was planned…
Any dealers still trying to put deals in today deserve what they get Gimme a break.
We stopped doing deals on Friday, even though we could have written probably 20 this past weekend, just so we wouldn’t have any issues with this.
We ran a used car clunker program guaranteeing $3500 on any clunker car and sold a boat load of used cars instead.
Believe it or not, we still had people coming in at 6pm tonight trying to do something! Without their clunker!
GS650G : It is a grand success because the politbureau says it is!
Still have no answer to why we paid big bucks to bail out GM and Chrysler and then paid people to buy Toyota’s, Honda’s, Ford’s, Kia’s, etc. etc.
dwford: “We ran a used car clunker program guaranteeing $3500 on any clunker car and sold a boat load of used cars instead.”
Hey, that sounds good, especially if “clunker” is defined more expansively. Hope the idea spreads.
GS650G :
August 24th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I’m still wondering how this is a grand success. THe government subsidizes the initial depreciation of new cars while enslaving dealerships into destroying a million cars.
Uh, last I checked, slavery is involuntary, and nobody’s forcing dealers to do these Cash for Clunkers deals. Please stop reading “Atlas Shrugged” so often.
@ Niedermeyer:
Must we replay this bogus “the government is using this website to take control of your computer” talking point yet again?
Gee….I wonder….Did the Government IT Geek think, while driving to work this morning, that it might be a good idea to expand the capacity of the system today? Did he walk into his boss’s office after his morning coffee and make the suggestion to expand the system? Was it his idea or his boss’s to shut the system down in the middle of the day to perform this upgrade?
It seems to me that this whole upgrade thing was really poorly planned. Wouldn’t seem more logical to have made this upgrade in the middle of the night when web traffic would have been slower and be less of an incovience to the “customers”?
Ah yes, as I have said before, this is the same government that wants to run your healthcare.
FreedMike :
Uh, last I checked, slavery is involuntary, and nobody’s forcing dealers to do these Cash for Clunkers deals. Please stop reading “Atlas Shrugged” so often.
We don’t have to read Rand, we are living it.
Cash for Clunkers is dead; long live the free market.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling we’re about to see sales sink like a stone, and stay that way for at least for the next several months.
@GS650G :
Actually, I’d say the overwhelming majority of us are living in the real world, where it’s more important to make things work, and adherence to crackpot ideology – like Rand’s – is a secondary consideration.