But the program seems to have benefited more Democrats than Republicans about twice as many Democrats as Republicans report knowing someone who has traded in a "clunker".
There remains a danger, however, that compromise will produce a clunker of a bill one that does little to slow climate change, little to revive the old economy and little to boost a new one.
But other factors might also have slowed things: some dealers complained of tardy payment from the government; rumours spread that a backlog of claims might mean the money would run out for later customers.As of last week, some 457,000 clunker purchases worth some $1.9 billion had been registered.
If it is an eight-cylinder clunker that is about to be scrapped anyway, then indubitably so.
The new model averages 20 mpg, two more than our clunker.
In just the few short years in which Americans have had an opportunity to react to high prices, they've adjusted as best they could: by cutting down on extraneous trips, or swapping an old clunker for a newer, more efficient vehicle.
IN THE 1980s, western car buyers knew Yugoslavia best as the exporter of the Yugo, a much derided communist-era clunker that shed its parts on roads across the United States and Europe.
Unhappily for Mr Miliband, though that summary is accurate enough, it also wholly fails to convey how this 6000 word clunker of a speech came across in reality.
SILVIO BERLUSCONI'S clunker of a government, its harassed driver and his squabbling passengers are still on the road.
Offer incentives to buy now rather than later; for example, temporary subsidies to consumers who turn in a clunker and buy a new car, a measure adopted in France.
The North announced a reboot of its 1960s clunker in April, and satellite imagery of the complex has since revealed steady progress: expansion of its uranium-enrichment facility and the finishing touches on a new light-water reactor.
