Thoughts on the amount of previous owners...

[Deleted member 37751]

As the title suggests- Does it bother you (within reason) how many owners your car has had?
Would it put you off buying a car that you had fell in love with?

 

[EDZ649]

No, not at all, my SL has had 7 previous owners but you would never know. You can tell if a cars been looked after, you don't need to know how many owners to see that....

On the other hand if a car had several owners in a very short space of time then I would want to look into why i.e. if the car was a lemon...

 

[NOMONEYBUTAMERC]

Number of owners not as crucial as condition/history .It only takes one careless owner to ruin a car.

 

[gIzzE]

Depends on the age.
I like a new owner every 1-2 years, so a 6 year old car with the first owner for 2 or 3 years and then a new owner every 12 months or so is fine.

I have always found the cars I have bought with a few owners have been in better condition, I am not saying that single or 2 owner cars are not looked after as well, just that I think you don't notice the little squeaks, the odd knock, or slight creak when it arrives over time.
Get a new car and you tend to sort out all those little niggles as you want it to be perfect, you always give a new car slightly more love that something you have had for 3 or 4 years and want to move on.

Obviously if a car is 3 years old and had 6 owners already you have to wonder why?

 

[Frankie]

I think it's fine over a long period of time but if it was say 10 years old but had had 20 owners,I might be concerned.

Mine was a 1996 with 1 owner I'd have still bought it if it had more as the car is in good condition.

 

[jaymanek]

Unimportant...
The DVLA dont list all the previous owners on the log book so its difficult to distinguish if the change of owners are real or not... i.e. a lot of changes are usually dealers applying for log books when they havent been supplied..they are not really proper owners.

It gets less important with age too.

 

[moonloops]

My last car had 1 owner for 20 years and 3 owners in 1 year and all in the same family so as stated, go on condition and service history.

 

[kusanku]

I have walked away from two cars because of number of previous owners. In one case I think I was justified, as it had 11 previous owners, some in relatively quick sucession, so I suspect there had been something amiss. The other one I think was a five year old car with five previous owners, and I may have been a little hasty walking away from that.

One potential problem could be when you come to sell it on, as most people are put off by multiple owners.