She's getting on in years. She uses up too many of our resources. And the federal government says society would be better off without her.

No, not your grandma. In this case, the plug is about to be pulled on a greenish-blue 1997 Dodge Caravan with 122,000 miles on the odometer, a few rust spots over the wheels and the sort of well-scuffed interior that comes from more than a decade of family service. Let's call her Old Blue.

Somewhere out there, the family that scuffed her up is driving around in a spanking-new Nissan, the cost of which has been defrayed by $3,500 to $4,500 from the Car Allowance Rebate System, popularly known as Cash for Clunkers.

I had come to Armory Nissan in Albany to watch Old Blue's demise after my own mechanic offhandedly mentioned how "weird" this aspect of the clunker program had proven to be for some of his colleagues. By vocation, mechanics are in the business of fixing cars, not putting them down like so many elderly hound dogs.

But the automotive equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath ("First, do no harm to a smooth-running engine," perhaps) has been suspended for as long as the clunker program lasts. While the federal government touts its ability to get fuel-inefficient cars off the road for good, dealers across the nation are ecstatic at its ability to replace those vehicles with new product. And while mechanics love the challenge of keeping a well-worn car alive, they love being employed even more.

This conversation had put me in mind of my own first car purchase in 1989, when I bought a 10-year-old BMW with almost 100,000 miles under it from an accountant who had taken meticulous, borderline-compulsive care of it. His wife had just delivered their first child, and he was about to get a station wagon.

"You're taking my baby away," he said as he handed me the key.

I spent the next six years beating the car to death on the steep, frequently unpaved roads of Wyoming and Vermont. I've often wondered if he would have sold it to me, had he known the torments that lay in store.

Jim Huskie, a master service technician at Armory Nissan in Albany, didn't sound overly sentimental as he drained Old Blue's engine oil in the dealership's garage.

"There's been a few cars that could have been saved, but they're coming off the road for a good reason," he said.

The clunker program got off to a fast start last month, and burned through its initial $1 billion outlay in a week; it was speedily re-upped with another $2 billion that should keep it going through the end of August.

The initial financial frenzy ran in parallel to uncertainty over just how dealers would go about decommissioning the traded-in clunkers. Did they have to be crushed, or would drilling a hole in the engine block suffice? One local dealer tried running a car without oil; it certainly did the job — the engine fried from excess friction — but created a big mess.

After bringing Old Blue down off the lift, Huskie piloted the van out of the garage on the last trip it would ever take under its own power, to a corner of the Armory lot that over the past few weeks has turned into a sort of automotive death row. There are about 30 vehicles waiting for a tow to the junk yard, including a few wearing scrawled editorial comments like "Take that, big oil." SUVs predominate, although you'll also find a Saab turbo and a custom van that's probably been in service since the Reagan Era. A few have been semi-stripped by their final owners of items ranging from radios to grilles. About 40 other clunkers have already been towed off the lot.

Huskie popped Old Blue's hood and brought out two bottles of sodium silicate, or liquid glass. After pouring the contents in the engine, he got back behind the wheel and turned the ignition. He ran the engine high at 2,000 rpm, heating the silicate and causing it to harden — a process that, in human terms, would be like swallowing concrete.

After less than a minute, Old Blue's engine gave a brief yelp and seized.

Huskie wiped the excess silicate from the engine and applied a sticker identifying Old Blue as well and truly dead. An hour later, he would have to walk back out to clunker row and give the key one more turn just to make sure that she hadn't triumphed over chemistry and miraculously come back to life. After a final check of her VIN number — the car's dental records, as it were — she would be ready for the scrap heap.

"It's not dramatic at all," Huskie said.

Casey Seiler can be reached at 454-5619 or by e-mail at cseiler@timesunion.com.