Sharing a TVR, how

[tescorank]

Owned Cerb 10 years, had full engine rebuild 2k miles 5 years ago, chassis original and good just been through mot, think of selling as now only doing a less than 200 a year, but every time my heart says no, I have a mate who has spare garage space and is a professional mechanic and who's more than interested in making a deal along the basis of he stores/maintains it, so obviously it needs to be "based on milage" as obviously he would like to use it?? So any ideas!

[fullpull]

If you can find an acceptable answer to the question who eventually will pay the bill if the engine goes pop while your mate was driving your Cerb you will be close to having this sorted out.

[TheRainMaker]

Well it works for planes, so I guess it could work for cars.

Let him buy 50% of the cars value, split all costs 50/50 etc etc, get a calendar so you both know when it's yours to use, and always fill it up when you leave it

[TVRJAS]

If it's anything like my experience of buying a boat and sharing 50% costs then I wouldn't get involved.

This was with my very good friend at the time but the feeling I ended up with was that it was HIS boat and I was just like any other guest that happened to be with us. Only difference between being a guest and myself was that I put 50% into the boat and 50% for fuel and running costs. After about 12 months I finally said "Look this ain't working" I either buy you out or you me. I ended up buying him out and really the situation got worse,he would then still come out on the boat but still think it was his except I paid for everything.

In the end when going to the boat show I placed an order on a new one,sold the one we did share to start again without him thinking he was still the owner.

I think in your situation IF for any reason the engine did let go when he was driving then I think it would be very hard not to think it was his fault(Or vice versa) and could leave some very sour grapes.

I remained friends with my friend but I think if the boat arrangement continued something was going to snap sooner rather than later.

[MrChips]

If you're only doing 200mls a year then sharing it with someone may be difficult if he wants to do 5k a year for example.

I co-own my Tuscan with my father in law, and co-owned our Chim before that. I'm in the middle of writing and article for Sprint on it as for us it works really well and we can't be the only ones who have thought they can get 95% of the enjoyment of it, with 50% of the running costs.
We split everything 50/50 no matter what. Which was good as it was me driving the the head gasket blew

[Goaty Bill 2]

TheRainMaker said:

Well it works for planes, so I guess it could work for cars.

That's some good thinking.
A lot of aeroplanes are shared ownership. My father was part of such an arrangement many years ago and seemed quite happy with it for some time.

I expect a flying club, or forum could get you quite a few good suggestions on exactly how people manage to make it work.

Admittedly the 'blown engine' scenario is a good deal less likely to come up, for the obvious reasons; most people that flew, that had that particular issue....

But people must have worked out other details like perhaps logging usage (hours / mileage) to arrive at a fairer distribution of costs/contributions than a simple 50/50.
Buy, who knows, maybe experience says straight 50/50 works best?

I would ask the 'experts'.

[FER4L]

I've owned many cars over the years with a close buddy and it's worked perfectly - also tried owning one one time with someone less considerate, and it wasn't a great experience. I think it depends on how good a mate he is and how much you trust him. If it will give you pleasure to see him get use out of the car, rather than totting up the miles he's done, and if you trust him to drive it considerately so that if it blows up while he's driving it then it would have done while you were driving it, you're onto a winner. If not, I wouldn't bother, it'll likely end in tears

Cheers

Matt

[DonkeyApple]

One of the reasons that yachts and planes share more easily is that you often just pay a professional entity to maintain them for you so it's a pre-known quarterly fee leaving the two owners to divi up usage.

With cars there isn't the same network/structure in place so the risk of issues over wear and tear are greater.

Personally, I wouldn't share a car and if I couldn't afford or justify owning a plane or yacht outright then I'd charter one whenever I needed it.

Having grown up with my father owning yachts and planes they are two items which I would personally never want to own.

[jamieduff1981]

A risk of sharing with a mechanic is that he will probably want to fix it on his own terms and in his own timescale. It may therefore not be available very often. He also may not be very good / you may not be happy with his idea of a repair.

To be honest if you're averaging a 20 mile drive once a month just sell it. You will effectively be selling him your car for a fraction of its value anyway if it's going to live at his place and he's going to be doing >90% of the milage.

Aeroplane syndicates generally contribute a sum per flying hour to cover scheduled maintenance. Unscheduled maintenance comes from a slush fund they top up hourly too.

Edited by jamieduff1981 on Monday 6th April 10:45

[Oldred_V8S]

Sharing a car, what couple possibly go wrong? I think this every time I hear the advert on the radio for buy to let cars.

[MethylatedSpirit]

I've done 7k in my TVR in the last year.

Lets be real with ourselves, you don't use it and don't intend to. So why keep it? Sell it and someone will use it and enjoy it. You could buy a chim/wedge/s if you want to keep in the tvr fold; much lower maintenance costs too.