I mean not by choice, not planned short ownerships.
Mine is three months, sold my car this morning for £250 spares or repair. I kind of regret it but at the end of the day I just did not have faith in the intrigrity of it.
My previous car was 9 months but that was slighltly unusual circumstances.
I have a feeling I am going to be one of these people who have owned 40 cars within the next 20 years!
So what is the shortest ownership people have had here? Did you buy a car for £400 only to find the cambelt snapped the next day?
Edited by Honestjohn on 26/01/2009 at 08:59
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I had a new company car delivered the day before I resigned, just in time to go on holiday!
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Warren Street in London used to be the home of the motor trade.
An old trader told me, he - and many others - would drive a car up and down the street and buy and sell it several times over.
He said that if you drove down 'the street' once and nobody stopped you, you knew you had a lemon.
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Pug 106 XT - 6 weeks
Pug 206 Garros - 2 months, 3000 miles
Both nice cars; 106 too small for me, Garros seats uncomfortable after 1 hour's driving. No point keeping either any longer than necessary.
Edited by Andrew-T on 25/01/2009 at 21:47
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That was one of the problems I had with my Fiesta, it was a lovely car to drive but getting computers in the back and in the boot was difficult at times.
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Nothing to do with the boot, Rattle - it was too small for ME.
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I have never driven one, but I have been one with several large people in the back, it was a nightmare, it was a 1.0 litre and silly bimbo insisting on going on the motorway even though I knew a much shorter and quicker A road journey, the result was being sat in the back of this tin box doing 45mph (which was flat out) on the M602.
The pedals are of set on the 106/saxo aren[t they which is supposed to make them horrid to drive for taller drivers.
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Bit of a fraudulent one this as it wasn't actually me but the shortest time I know of someone having a new car was about two hours.
Firm I worked for back along used to change the company cars every year. My friend picked up his new Cortina 2.0S at 5.00 pm. Drove it half a mile to the pub where he had arranged to have an early meal with his girlfriend. She had her own second hand 3.0 Capri at the time. About 7.00 as they were leaving in the two cars, the GF floored it out of the pub car park in an attempt to establish the automotive pecking order. My mate foolishly tried to keep up and failed to avoid a large metal bollard at the exit to the car park.
It was quite a long car park, plenty of room to build up a turn of speed.
The upshot of this was that he kept his job but was given a Fiat 127 I think it was. The Fiat was a hack which had been used and abused around the company for some time and smelled quite a lot. No one really knew why.
He had that for about a year....
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I was sold a Cavalier for £80, knackered old shed, decided I didnt want it and a bloke said he would give me £200 for it so he had it within an hour.
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Just sold my Volvo 480 ES this morning as spares/repairs, I only owned it 2 months before I smacked it against a brick wall a month ago. :(
Previously the very first car I owned an E-reg Nova 1.2 Merit for 3 months, before I was given a Pug 205 1.1 by a relative.
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>The pedals are offset on the 106/Saxo aren't they, which is supposed to make them horrid to drive for taller drivers.
My (brief) experience is that the 106's pedals save a tall driver a lot of awkward decisions, since it's possible - in fact practically obligatory - to press all three with one size 12.
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1.25 mk5 Fiesta, found it uncomfortable, sold after about 2 months I think.
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ford maverick 2.7 diesel had it 2 weeks sold it today cost me £50 in diesel a done just 200 miles , ill do my homework next time
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smart roadster BRABUS - the ride did my back in, chopped it back in after 5wks.
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3 months - a BMW 3 series Compact. Nothing but trouble - dealer got sick of us always bringing it back for repairs. Got our money back thanks to Trading Standards. Nver buy a BMW again - especially from those dealers
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Half an hour! I would only have been 17 and I traded in one car for an MGB roadster, absolutely hated it so drove to another dealer and traded for something else.
My father in law can beat that, although he technically owned it he never drove it. He had ordered a new car from the dealer and went down to the dealership to collect it. He noticed that the car was just going out from the car park and went in to see the salesman. When he mentioned about seeing it the salesman went to investigate. It turned out that it had been stolen from the valeting bay.
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One week - with a Skoda Estelle. I nearly killed myself because it was tail heavy
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Not owned but controlled - two hours at most.
Had a 2dr Golf Driver and was offered a 5dr Citroen Ax GTi. Swapped cars over, and went out on a valuation. Spent five minutes on the M66 and came back to the office and swapped right back.
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7 days
Escort Estate bought for its gearbox. Driven from Leeds via Burton to RLBS and then taken away by scrapyard with its engine suspended by some 2"x2" across the wings.
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"What is the shortest time you have owned a car?"
3 weeks with a Renault Megane. That says it all really.
It was only as long as that because a) I gave the dealer chance to fix some of the faults (they failed to do so) and b) it took a week from selecting its replacement to picking it up!
My average is about 9 months with my cars, some go after 3-6 months, other might nearly make a year before I'm bored. Longest so far out of my 16 cars has been 22 months with a Vectra C. With the credit crunch, the 14 months from my current S80 might only be the beginning.
Edited by TheOilBurner on 26/01/2009 at 12:43
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2 weeks with a 56 plate Vauxhall Zafira diesel.
Just didn't warm to it and the dealer was absolutely terrible. I lost £2000 in 2 weeks - I know it was really stupid but hey ho
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About three weeks with a Fiat Ullysse - we realized after the second week that running a large petrol-engined car was a financial non starter. Sold it on (at a profit!) and bought an Espace diesel.
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As part of a student deal. I exchanged a 1938 MG TA Tickford in wreck status for an Austin A30 and Standrad 10. Both were runners with MOT. The A30 was sold for £20 within 30 minutes. It ran for a year before being scrapped with rust. the STandard 10 lasted for 2 years before scrapped due to rust.
I woned an Austin 1100 as a part exchange for a week before I sold it. HORRIBLE car,
An MG1300 lasted 3 weeks..
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Tee hee.
Some years ago, before I had ever heard of HJ let alone scanned his advice to would-be buyers, I went to a car auction across the river somewhere at an outfit that must obviously be nameless, where I bid for a fairly clean looking little bob-tailed Citroen runabout whose model name I forget, and got it for what seemed peanuts. It ran, too, but at a certain point in the test drive turned out to have no reverse gear. Doh! No refund of course, just straight back into the auction place to await purchase by the next halfwit.
Must have 'owned' it for all of an hour. Can't remember what the loss was, but rest assured it was unwelcome (or I wouldn't have been trying to buy that sort of car in the first place). The jalopy concerned must have been making steady money for the auction house for months if not years.
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I lost £2000 in 2 weeks
Ouch. I only lost £500 for the 3 weeks of blasted Renault ownership and I begrudged that too!
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I bought the company pool car I regularly drove for £1,100 on a Friday and sold it for £2,200 the following day. So one day I guess...
John R
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Three months. R reg VW Polo 1.9D CL - only a few years old at the time. Power steering problems, starting problems, electrical problems, bits of trim fell off, joyless to drive and serious rust developed on rear arches and tailgate before it was even 4 yrs old. Never have I disliked a car so much, or not felt even a twinge of sadness as it was driven away, and I'd be lying if I said it hadn't slightly tainted my view of Volkswagens ever since.
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5 minutes.
I didn't know if this was somekind of scam, but this is what happened.
Go to a local garage to look at cheap MK1 Astra after totalling my Renault 11 Turbo, for sale for about £300. A bit shabby, runs very nicely, very short MOT. Test drive it, all seems fine, agree to buy the car and for the garage to put 12 months test on it and I pay for the MOT work.
One week later, go to the garage and hand over the cash, to be told that the car needs to be picked up from the bosses house.
I started the car and it was obvious that there was something seriously wrong with the engine. Decide to return to garage I'd bought it from to see what the problem was and the big ends blow about three miles into the journey.
The boss of the garage was happy to refund me the price of the car, but not the £150 or so I'd spent getting the MOT done.
I can only think that the engine was swapped for a duffer or one of the mechanics had been ragging it mercilessly in the week before I collected.
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Owned a new MK 3 Austin Healey Sprite for about 18 months but had to sell it as BMC bought out the new MK 4 that had lovely wind-up windows at last and I couldn't resist it and hence became the owner of a lovely new British Racing Green Sprite, in 1964 IIRC.
However, in those day, all such cars were prone to rusting and that car was no exception!
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I remember reading in the local freesheet about a woman who went to pick up her brand new 306 Cabriolet from the dealers at midnight on the day the new registrations came out, when people got excited about such things.
She managed to write it off before she got home, the story has only stuck with me because her name was Mrs Nutter.
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I bought a rusting Fiesta of a young chap for £250 on sunday morning. I had a drive but it rattled terribly, the brakes felt a bit dodgy and one of the tyres was a cheapo brand.
It had a new MOT, so I sold it to a bloke in the pub at lunchtime for £375.
Nice bit of profit!!!
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MGTC of about 1950. About 1 month - it caught fire with a full tank of petrol and burned to death in no time.
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>I sold it to a bloke in the pub at lunchtime for £375
It wasn't Rattle, was it? :-)
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In the tradition of this Forum - I didn't think that I had an experience to contribute - well I woke up at 3.00am and remembered:- Red Mini Traveller ( 1968) bought for £200.00 by my father as "my" first car. Ignition light came on and he took it back to the seller and got his cash back. It probably would have been a cheap fix :-( Bright side was that its replacement was a Morris 1000 and an introduction to some important things in life - easy maintenance and more importantly rear wheel drive - | have never regretted what I learnt about handling a car with narrow cross plies and a live rear axle all instantly controllable - paid dividends especially with the early high powered three series I late came to love.
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6 weeks...21 years old, young and foolish...spent some inheritance on a 6 year old gleaming red, Jaguar XJS
took me 6 weeks to work out it wasn't a good idea, mainly due to family friend who rebuilds various exotica and racing cars pointing out the likely money pitfalls...plus.. me being constantly worried about where i'd parked it
so got rid. Would have made a noticeable profit, but during the test drive the purchaser noted the gearbox wasn't changing gear quickly enough, was only low fluid, but his mechanic found a loose steering box so i had to drop a bit for that
end result it cost me £50 for 6 weeks, which was cheaper than hiring it
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Good money to experience Jag - was it a V12 ?
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was it a V12 ?
oh yes.....9 to the gallon around town and 15 on a run if driven reasonably sensibly, which at 21 it wasn't ...:-)
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Peugeot 505 V6 saloon, owned for about 2 weeks.
Brought it off eBay and enjoyed driving a big old French barge and, maybe surprisingly, everything still worked (including the air con), but I already had a car when I bought it and when I'd driven it home (from Portsmouth to Eastbourne) I realised one car had to go.
Sold it back onto eBay and made £150 on it.
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2 weeks. Bought a Maserati Citroen, delivered from Paris to Germany on a trailer, went over a 'level' crossing which was actually on a bend and thus uneven rail heights and turned it into an expensive banana! Insurance paid out and I bought a 2500 BMW and had some change!
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Only vaguely related to the OP but what do you expect from me....
Chatting to a pal today who does silly mileage like me. He bought a 52 plate diesel Passat 7 months ago with 140k on it for £2300. At the time it had a full MOT, a fresh service, new tyres and a years tax provided by the previous owner. He has driven it for another 20k, done nothing at all to it and just sold it this morning for £2350.
Fifty quid up for 20k miles. Can't be bad. What's more it needs a cam belt now and is desperately in need of front tyres.
He's off to the auctions tomorrow to try to find a replacement.
I sort of hate him a bit....
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Haha I am jealous. I paid £350 for mine, spent £200 on it, kept it 3 months sold it for £250. I could have got more but I just had to be honest and mention it was rotten.
I just look on it that I got a lot of driving experience from it, learnt a lot more buying a car is a lot harder than just checking the engine.
Edited by Rattle on 26/01/2009 at 19:44
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3 days - many years ago. Got it home then noticed the speedo wasn't working and realised it had been clocked. Then looked more carefully and found it had seen loads of body repair and complete respray. Looked fabulous at first sight but probably been a near writeoff. Got immediate refund and never been caught that way since.
Longest: 29 years. Opel Manta Berlinetta Sportshatch bought from the executors just two months old and with 1000 miles after the first owner died and still have it.
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Opel Manta Berlinetta Sportshatch
Nice - very cool and Germanic in a way that Vauxhall could never manage.
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I don't think I've ever had a short lived one, apart from a knackered mini I bought to replace the previosu one that I'd killed. Was in terrible codition so got rid after six weeks.
Was at an auction with a dealer friend who had winning bid on a £45k range Rover.
ten minutes later someone offered him £500 profit which he took.
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4 weeks = £4K
Black 56 plate subaru imprezza sti type UK
it was best car i have every owned.
but the wife got cheesed putting £30 a week in it to do 100 miles a week
I did around 50 - 100 miles at the weekend and put £50 of the good stuff petrol init.
bought for 19500, sold for 15500, so lost £4000.
doh!
worst one at the moment is the mini cooper s convert.
bought on pcp for £20K in 5 months only paid off around £600.
value they saying is £14500.
lol
they must see me coming.
and im trying to convince the missis that an mits fto looks great (was thinking of getting one)
then in summer get a cheapish saab 93 convert (£7K)
so £10K for two cars. Im such a nut job when it comes to cars.
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4 years, 11 months. (Ford Fiesta Mk III)
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