Number of previous owners

alfa beta

When looking to buy a second hand car, are you swayed by the number of previous owners? If so in what way? I'm looking at buying an SUV between 8 - 10 years old so you'll get anything from one owner all the way through to maybe four or five. Does it even matter really, seeing as you have no way of knowing how any previous owner (or the drivers allowed by that owner) treated the car? Interested to know what people think

Del2005

Most people change every 2 or 3 years. So if there are more than 4 owners for a 8 year old car it will raise a flag, this is for normal everyday cars some exotics change hands a lot more often.

But buy the car on condition because it only takes 1 person to wreck a car.

Lumen

The biggest lemon I ever bought had one owner and was 2-3 years old. I think the owner had held on to it for as long as he could bear, getting each issue sorted under warranty.

In hindsight all the signs were there, unresolved warranty issues and the owner gave slightly odd reasons for selling it. Most people are bad liars.

wingnut

My experience; I bought one with a high number of owners because it was in great condition and seemed ok on test drive. Before long lots of issues and after three repairs the used dealer gave in and refunded the money.

9935452

On top of that changing ownership is the way of getting out of psying back tax so if done a few times the amount of owners can increase quickly

cruizer101

I'd say broadly speaking people who keep cars longer take better care of them then people who change regularly, but there is a lot of assuming in that statement.
Really it's very hard to know the history of the car. People take good care of all sorts of cars new old expensive cheap, and people also treat them crap.
You can only really judge on what you know definitely, the car in front of you and service history.
One flag for me would be recent transfer, anything under a year bit suspect but may just be change in circumstances.

Alanstrainor

I think mine had 11 owners when I bought it... I'm not the single longest owner of the car 7 years after purchase. But I think mine was an exception, it was a high tax, fuel thirsty machine and most probably bought it and shifted it quick after realising how much fuel they were putting in.

For a normal car I would look at the number of previous owners and be put off by anything on the higher side. But there could be a lot at play here, so really it's one of the smaller factors I would consider.

Del2005

9935452 wrote: »

On top of that changing ownership is the way of getting out of psying back tax so if done a few times the amount of owners can increase quickly

If someone is skimping on legally required things for a car what else are they skimping on? Especially on relatively new cars.

Wishbone Ash

One owner doesn't mean one driver. We've several work cars which were all new when bought but are in pretty poor condition due to multiple drivers using them every day. When they are sold on, they'll have 'one owner'.