One of the upsides of holding onto a used car in New York is that insurance costs are lower than for new cars. The price of buying insurance for a car purchased through a Cash for Clunkers program may actually outweigh the discount, according to industry research.

For example, insuring a used Ford Explorer in New York costs roughly $1,400 per year on average for the 1999 model, while a new Honda Civic costs more than $2,000 even though it is one of the more affordable new cars to insure.

Adding up the cost difference over a five-year period would total $3,500, or the discount offered for such a switch, noted an Insurance.com report.

While insurance may be one reason to consider staying with a used car in New York, another may be the efforts by Republican legislators to nix any more funding for the Cash for Clunkers program.

Conservative senators are not enthusiastic about a bill passed by the House to augment the initiative with an additional $2 billion, and some Democrats say that the funding would create issues by supporting a program that does not help the less affluent, reported Fox News.