Too many former keepers?

[300bhp/ton]

auditt said:

Some times, People change ownership on cars to get over "parking tickets"

So same owner just had log book changed to joe blogs investments, to red purple and gold investments to oranges maangement

It's also worth noting that technically the V5 only records "registered keepers" not owners.

So if Mr Bloggs has a company car = owner 1. He buys company car = owner 2, after a year transfers it to his wife = owner 3 and then a year later to their son = owner 4

4 owners, but is it really?

[Dracoro]

Kozzy said:

300bhp/ton said:

NorthernBoy said:

Statistics and you are, it seems, not comfortable bedfellows.

It is unarguable that every extra owner increases the chance that one of them is the sort that you'd prefer were not in the car's history.

You see this is why it's false certainty. You are making the assumption that the majority of owners will be good, so more owners then runs the risk of a bad one.

But that's a huge assumption to make. You could also assume that most owners are bad. This would statistically mean each new owner would increase your chance of a good owner.

NorthernBoy said:

It is also unarguable that increasing their number in no way decreases the average time that you could expect it to have been in the hands of a bad owner.

and

Yes it does.

Car 'x' is 10 years old. 3 owners.

MEAN average of ownership duration 3.333 years per owner

Car 'y' is 10 years old. 9 owners.

MEAN average of ownership duration 1.111 years

If both cars had had 1 bad owner, then car 'x' would have been exposed to the owner for 3 times as long.

Assuming the first car had 1 bad owner. On average 1 in 3 owners was a bad one. Carry this over to the second car and it would average 3 bad owners would it not?

I imagine the compound effect of 3 different bad owners would be worse than 1 bad owner over a slightly longer period, but that is pure speculation.

Edited by Kozzy on Friday 1st October 14:36

Or worse, you could get a 10 year old car with one owner who has abused it. That's TEN years of abuse. If it had 10 different owners then some of those years it's not been abused.

The bottom line is, you can never really know if the cars been abused by previous owners. *maybe* you can get *some* indication of the seller if he personally is the abusing car type etc.

Personally, I would suggest that number of owners is largely irrelevant unless it's had 5 owners in the last year (maj problems so they just sell on, next owner discovers this and tries to sell on again etc..) as opposed to a new owner every 1 or 2 years.

I think the only "positive" with small number of prev owners is "resale" due to some illogical thinking as outlined in some previous threads.

It will also depend on the car, a luxobarge probably hasn't been abused in the same way as a hot hatch etc.

There are more important things to look at, service history, overall condition etc.

[will_]

300bhp/ton said:

auditt said:

Some times, People change ownership on cars to get over "parking tickets"

So same owner just had log book changed to joe blogs investments, to red purple and gold investments to oranges maangement

It's also worth noting that technically the V5 only records "registered keepers" not owners.

So if Mr Bloggs has a company car = owner 1. He buys company car = owner 2, after a year transfers it to his wife = owner 3 and then a year later to their son = owner 4

4 owners, but is it really?

As one car dealer once described a similar car to me - "virtually one owner from new"....!

[Kozzy]

Dracoro said:

Kozzy said:

300bhp/ton said:

NorthernBoy said:

Statistics and you are, it seems, not comfortable bedfellows.

It is unarguable that every extra owner increases the chance that one of them is the sort that you'd prefer were not in the car's history.

You see this is why it's false certainty. You are making the assumption that the majority of owners will be good, so more owners then runs the risk of a bad one.

But that's a huge assumption to make. You could also assume that most owners are bad. This would statistically mean each new owner would increase your chance of a good owner.

NorthernBoy said:

It is also unarguable that increasing their number in no way decreases the average time that you could expect it to have been in the hands of a bad owner.

and

Yes it does.

Car 'x' is 10 years old. 3 owners.

MEAN average of ownership duration 3.333 years per owner

Car 'y' is 10 years old. 9 owners.

MEAN average of ownership duration 1.111 years

If both cars had had 1 bad owner, then car 'x' would have been exposed to the owner for 3 times as long.

Assuming the first car had 1 bad owner. On average 1 in 3 owners was a bad one. Carry this over to the second car and it would average 3 bad owners would it not?

I imagine the compound effect of 3 different bad owners would be worse than 1 bad owner over a slightly longer period, but that is pure speculation.

Edited by Kozzy on Friday 1st October 14:36

Or worse, you could get a 10 year old car with one owner who has abused it. That's TEN years of abuse. If it had 10 different owners then some of those years it's not been abused.

The bottom line is, you can never really know if the cars been abused by previous owners. *maybe* you can get *some* indication of the seller if he personally is the abusing car type etc.

Personally, I would suggest that number of owners is largely irrelevant unless it's had 5 owners in the last year (maj problems so they just sell on, next owner discovers this and tries to sell on again etc..) as opposed to a new owner every 1 or 2 years.

I think the only "positive" with small number of prev owners is "resale" due to some illogical thinking as outlined in some previous threads.

It will also depend on the car, a luxobarge probably hasn't been abused in the same way as a hot hatch etc.

There are more important things to look at, service history, overall condition etc.

I would imagine 10 years of constant abuse would be easier to notice and avoid when viewing the car than one year of abuse? i.e. the general condition would surely be worse?

I think some people here have misunderstood the original theme of the thread where multiple owners was a contributing factor on deciding on a car not THE deciding factor. As always it's about balance surely?

[Pig Skill]

Thanks for feedback

I think given the type of car and the age 5 or 6 aint too bad. I suppose another way of looking at things is to assume that every new owner would have the 'I love my new car and I am going to get the little bits sorted...' frame of mind.

I guess thre are enough of you out there who would judge the car on its merits and not the piece of paper.

Thanks

[weezb]

300bhp/ton said:

auditt said:

Some times, People change ownership on cars to get over "parking tickets"

So same owner just had log book changed to joe blogs investments, to red purple and gold investments to oranges maangement

It's also worth noting that technically the V5 only records "registered keepers" not owners.

So if Mr Bloggs has a company car = owner 1. He buys company car = owner 2, after a year transfers it to his wife = owner 3 and then a year later to their son = owner 4

4 owners, but is it really?

I was thinking about this when I saw this thread. With my previous car I know the person had it from new (her name was on all documentation, meaning service schedule, manual etc not V5, and I spoke to her before I bought it), she transferred it to her husband, and later on they traded it in and as it was just a snotter run-about the dealer they traded it in with passed it on to auction, it was then bought by another dealer, whom I purchased it from.

So, in truth it had 3 owners (including myself), yet it stated it had 4 keepers (not including me).

Edited by weezb on Friday 1st October 17:28

[auditt]

As long as its got FULL service history its good for me

[NorthernBoy]

Kozzy said:

[
Assuming the first car had 1 bad owner. On average 1 in 3 owners was a bad one. Carry this over to the second car and it would average 3 bad owners would it not?

Precisely. I know that I make fun of 300s less than stelar intellect, but even he, surely, knows how disingenuous he was being there.

[oOTomOo]

Could have 9 previous owners and the last 2 decided there was something they didn't want to fix on the service, or it could have one previous owner who decided there was something they didn't want to fix on the service.

Point is, you should check it just as carefully no matter how many owners it's had.

[NorthernBoy]

300, of you want to come up with an intelligent objection to my point, here's a couple for you.

My argument relies on the contention that one terrible owner is a poison pill as far as a car is concerned, that only a short period of ownership in the hands of someone who abuses it badly is enough to make you want to think twice about buying it.

You could argue, if you so wished, that it's not a problem with modern cars, or that subsequent owners could in general be expected to correct faults which the bad owner caused.

These are both logical objections, and up for debate.

[Jakg]

Let me use my car as an example

Owner 1 - 2004 - MG Rover demo car

Onwer 2 - Original buyer - 2004-2007

Owner 3 - 2007 - 2009

Owner 4 - 2009 - 2010

Owner 5 (me) - 2010-

Only one person ever had the car for a short amount of time, tbh.

Thats 5 owners on a 6 year old car - your looking at double the age, but only 2 more owners. Sounds reasonable to me!

[Herbs]

I tend to change my cars every 12-18 months which if everyone does then it can easily add up to a lot of owners.

It also depends on the car - if it was a mondeo for example then I would be a little worried but it is very much the norm for sports cars as people tend to trade up every year or try something new.

In fact I tend to prefer more owners based on the fact that a new owner every year means that it is likely that they would have looked after it well as the car is "new" to them rather them own it for 5 years and not give a toss after 3 years as it is their "old" car.

The rule always remains the same - buy on condition and how it drives

Edited by Herbs on Monday 4th October 15:53

[Engineer1]

Buy on condition, speak to the current owner how much work have they done, I would be more worried about the last owner having thrashed it than the 3rd owner having thrashed it assuming it has been well cared for and properly serviced at a specialist or dealer.

[Blown2CV]

I owned a ford v8 in oz, and I was owner number 33.

[JCW_Matt]

Am glad I found this thread! My 2003 RR Vogue TD6 has had 5 owners, but - it was a demo car, and it has had two owners in the same family with documentation to prove it.

I was just told by someone that its worth half of the advertised/book price because of this - someone please tell me this is not true!

[J4CKO]

It is one of those things that is largely irelevant, you buy on condition and how it drives on the day you go to see it, people put too much store in the number of keepers, service history and having a new MOT, that is stuff to reassure those who dotn know much, ok, its all part of the picture but my main deciding factors are,

Gut feel

Condition

Rightness

Supporting documentation like old MOT's

How it drives

Price



Gut feel is the main one, the owner, is he shifty, is it being sold from a demilitarized zone ? rightness is does it feel like its miles, is there overspray, is there damaged screws on the trim and that kind of thing.

[mnkiboy]

JCW_Matt said:

Am glad I found this thread! My 2003 RR Vogue TD6 has had 5 owners, but - it was a demo car, and it has had two owners in the same family with documentation to prove it.

I was just told by someone that its worth half of the advertised/book price because of this - someone please tell me this is not true!

Clearly rubbish. There's no way a car worth £8K (wild guess!) is only worth £4k due to having 5 owners.

The number of owners doesn't have any effect on the value of the car. It might just make it a little trickier to sell on privately due to people being wary of it.

[JCW_Matt]

Nice one guys, was getting ready to loose quite a bit more than i had expected on the car when it comes to selling.

You are correct - I have seen one owner cars that are battered - in contrast, my car is in excellent condition so however many people have driven it, they have clearly cared for it.

Thinking back, my 2006 Focus ST had 3 owners on the logbook when I sold it in 09, and that didnt bother me in the slightest.

[denniswise9]

I had a Astra once, Y reg...had 12 previous owners.

I sold it after 2 weeks.

[thebigmacmoomin]

Last year, a guy in work went to look at a 4 year old C-Max. Looked good until he saw it had 3 owners in 4 years. Didnt buy it in the end, didnt like the seats in it either.