New car is not in the cards, CARS or no

So, the end result of a week's worth of labor? No new car for me. After 7 days of arguing every single point of the deal, I've decided that Ford needs the sale more than we need the car.
That means the only Ford I'm dreaming about right now, is my good old Ranger.

I'm not going into personal details here in a public forum, but to be fair to the dealership, this was not a simple deal, it involved me and my honey and a very complicated government program. I could have simplified things very simply by trading my Ranger in as a "Clunker" but there is no way I'm allowing this truck to be scrapped, it's just been too good to me these last 10.5 years and it's only got 57,500 miles on it. Original clutch and only second set of tires.

I had looked at many options with this program, even considering going beyond the Blue Oval and test driving a Chevy Equinox, and I'll comment on that in another post.

It's my opinion that anyone who didn't get a deal in the first weeks of this program won't be getting a great deal no matter how much money the government throws at the program.
First, there are too many hoops to jump through. Second, dealers are overwhelmed by the mountain of paperwork involved. And lastly, with lower inventory on dealer lots, the cars that qualify for the greatest discounts just aren't on the lots.

I've visited several Ford and Mercury dealerships and Escapes and Mariners are becoming scarce, as are Fusions, Milans and Focus.

I'm finally throwing up my hands and wishing everyone involved good luck.
Customers, dealers, auto recyclers and every taxpayer. In the end, I think this was a great program and I hope it worked for some folks. If I was willing to see my faithful Ranger killed it would have worked for me.

I'm going to try and avoid posting about the CARS program unless there's something that really sparks interest in me.