Car buyers hoping to take advantage of the government's £2000 scrappage incentive could miss out - even though the scheme is scheduled to run until the end of March.
Some of the major manufacturers involved have now closed their order books, having used up their funding allocations.
Fiat, Audi, Volkswagen, Hyundai and Kia said they have suspended scrappage orders after selling all the cars their cash allocation allowed under the programme.
The backlog of orders generated by the scheme is likely to see the final few hundred cars for each manufacturer used up in days.
However, Honda, Citroen and Peugeot have reported that they expect to continue the scheme until the end of the month.
