How many owners ?

[cmvtec]

adf83 said:

cmvtec said:

Did you buy my car? Several owners... 2005... 20mpg!

If it was a 147 GTA then possibly! Mind you, 20mpg probably wasn’t so bad in 2005!

Dirty old man's Jag, here. 20mpg on a daily.

[Dave Hedgehog]

a lot of owners in a short period of time would have me suspecting a problem with the car

[lancer778544]

The project Fiat Coupe I recently bought has 15 previous owners. It's a total shed, but I knew that before buying it.

[Wagonwheel555]

Most buyers are not 'car folk', they want a specific car to get them from A to B. Something about multiple owners in a short space of time puts them off, perhaps they assume a car has had lots of issues if owners keep moving them on.

There are often various legitimate reasons for a car having a few owners but unless its documented in the paperwork (it often isn't) then it leaves you having to assume.

You have to think resale also. Selling a car where you are the second owner is going to be easier than selling a car that has had 6 owners.

As mentioned above, sports cars can have several owners to to people buying them and realising they cost more to run than they assumed. Perhaps a £700 set of brake discs/pads made them think twice or £800 for a set or tyres etc.

Our 330D is 2015 and we are the 4th owner. Seems a little odd that a 5 year old car with 15k on the clock had three owners but it was AUC and came with a warranty so it was a non issue/concern for us. 8 months and 8k miles later, not skipped a beat.

[Fat hippo]

Chubbyross said:

Fat hippo said:

I think i’m the 7th owner of my 993. Does that make it bad?

It had 6 owners in the first 12.5 years of its life and i’ve now owned it for 13.5 years.
I’ve not had any issues with it. Certain types of cars will possibly have more frequent owner changes as people want to experience owning the car then move on to the next thing that takes their fancy.
As long as its been maintained then don’t see an issue.

Exactly. Fancier cars are things to be enjoyed and cherished, regardless of how long they stay with the owner. I find it’s the single owner cars that are driven as dailies that tend to be ragged and neglected, save from the annual service and MOT.

Flipping it round the other way, if you have a one owner car over, say 5 years or even 10 years, then you could argue that the reason they are now selling it is because they know its becoming too expensive too run and niggling/big problems have started to appear.

Ultimately, its the service/maintenance history that will be important.

There are similar threads about buying demo/press cars. I once bought an ex BMW press car (it had press preparation as one of the options) and the dealer admitted it felt suspiciously quick for a 325i e36. Very basic spec but options were limited to sports suspension, met paint, sunroof and LSD.

It was one of the best cars I had, and more reliable than the M3 that replaced it

[mrdanbartlett]

lancer778544 said:

The project Fiat Coupe I recently bought has 15 previous owners. It's a total shed, but I knew that before buying it.

Massively side topic but I had a FC 20vt for 4 years or so, cool cars - not without regular fairly expensive jobs of course. The LE's and Plus editions are probably good money now.

[lancer778544]

mrdanbartlett said:

Massively side topic but I had a FC 20vt for 4 years or so, cool cars - not without regular fairly expensive jobs of course. The LE's and Plus editions are probably good money now.

This is a 20vt "normal" edition. I haven't driven it yet and the first job is to yank the engine out for cambelt, clutch and suspected CHOD replacement. I'll put a project thread up when I get started, just waiting for my Alfa 145 to sell first.