If you live in Santa Barbara County and have an old car, you might be able to turn it in for cash. A car buyback program intended to get older, more polluting cars off the road has been expanded.
“Our old car buyback program previously only accepted cars that were model year 1997 or older, and participants were paid a thousand dollars,” said Liz Bantilan, with the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District, which is sponsoring the old car buyback program.
“New this year, we are accepting vehicles that are model year 2002 or older, and we are paying participants $2200,” said the APCD Public Information Officer.
She said there are some conditions.
“Vehicles for our program must be registered in Santa Barbara County, and they had to have been registered in Santa Barbara County for the past two consecutive years. The vehicle has to be working, and it has to be smog checked,” said Bantilan.
The buyback program has taken more than 8000 old cars off Santa Barbara County’s streets since it started in 1993.
Ventura County also has a car buyback program in effect.
