Shortest period of car ownership.

Iamzod · 11 Sep 2018 at 22:43

5 Days is my shortest ownership, bought an R-Reg Ford Escort Estate 1.8D for £30 as the owner was going to scrap it because it wouldn't start, ran a wire from the ignition to the starter (from memory anyway) which took 20 mins, car was now running.

Washed it & sold it for £500 to a guy who wanted to use it to go fishing in so it wouldn't dirty up his daily.

Vita · 11 Sep 2018 at 22:57

Both of those bloody Hondas I bought.

Raymond Lin · 11 Sep 2018 at 23:00

2 years 7 months and counting, my current car.

SexyGreyFox · 11 Sep 2018 at 23:04

3 days when I had a car stolen so bought one for £50.
In 43 years I've had six cars with the longest being 16 years.

GhostWKD · 11 Sep 2018 at 23:31

SexyGreyFox said:
3 days when I had a car stolen so bought one for £50.
In 43 years I've had six cars with the longest being 16 years.

16 years in one car feels mental to me...

I think I'm on probably 40+ cars in 15 years of driving. Longest I've had a car is probably my Noble infact.

Shortest, probably my S3 that I had for a few months and found it dull as dishwater.

rebel rebel · 12 Sep 2018 at 00:58

In 1995 I had a Peugeot 309 for about 2 weeks before someone pulled out on me, I slammed into them writing off both cars.
The day before the other guys insurance company was due to write me a cheque, I saw on the news that a big insurance company had gone bankrupt. Of course this would be the company that owed me my money. In the end it took 18 months to be paid.

To further add insult.. About a year after I sold the written off car, I got a knock on the door at 4am, it was the police saying the car had just been involved in a hit and run. I explained I had been home all night, and gave them the details of the local garage that I sold it to. Next day I went to see the (very dodgy) garage manager, and he swore he had sold it the previous day. A likely story..

Liquidfox · 12 Sep 2018 at 12:32

1 month and 4 hours before writing it off.

scoobyrichuk · 12 Sep 2018 at 13:07

I'm pretty bad for this, I've bought 14 cars in my (nearly) 15 years of driving. The shortest ownership times for me were an E46 330i (nice car but I just found it incredibly dull) and an Alfa 156 GTA (gorgeous car, amazing engine but handled like ****) - I owned both for approximately 4 months then sold them. Recently had an E39 540i which I only kept for 5 months, loved the engine but it was too big for me and 12-15mpg becomes tiresome quickly.

Nasher · 12 Sep 2018 at 13:15

Audi A3 diesel. Had it only 6 months, it was the worlds dullest car. Sold it and bought an MX-5 mk3

TacticalFish · 12 Sep 2018 at 15:01

~9 days. Mk1 Clio that I bought for £400, has been sitting on a forecourt for quite a while, drove it for a week before it broke down. Me and the friends I was with pushed it into a side street, found the dis. cap and rotor weren't any good. Went home, ordered replacements, came back a few days later and the car had been completely kicked in. All windows & lights smashed, door panels kicked in. Took one look at it and called a scrappy, who gave me £50 for it. I think that's the quickest I've ever lost 350 quid (+ 15 for the parts).

Scania · 12 Sep 2018 at 15:40

I had a Capri 2.8 years back for about a week, hated the way it drove almost as much as the near single figure mpg it was returning but did make £500 on the sale which wasn’t a bad return!

My partner had a Ford Kuga for a week before selling it back to the dealer as she simply couldn’t “gel” with it.

Think the shortest I know of was a mate of my dads who bought an e34 535i brand new from Hartshill BMW in Newcastle and promptly crashed on the roundabout just up the road, wrote it off, he’d covered less than half a mile and his ownership- at least in terms of him being able to drive it - lasted about 2 minutes!

remy87 · 12 Sep 2018 at 15:48

GhostWKD said:
16 years in one car feels mental to me...

I think I'm on probably 40+ cars in 15 years of driving. Longest I've had a car is probably my Noble infact.

Shortest, probably my S3 that I had for a few months and found it dull as dishwater.

If the car is reliable why not? There might be some attachment to the car as well.
We all don't have money to waste on a car every 6 months or so.

I wish I did

Even then I would like an older quick ish car and make it my own.

ubersonic · 12 Sep 2018 at 16:31

My shortest was 8 months, however I had a friend in college who bought a Vauxhall Cavalier on a Tuesday for £90, and on the Thursday it was written off after a Mini T-boned it.

rebel rebel · 12 Sep 2018 at 16:52

WoodyUK said:
2-3 weeks.

Very heavily modified track-spec Subaru BRZ.

Naively thought I could run it as a daily and it was 2 years ago now where insurance was too expensive for me to own a daily and a weekend car (still is mind).
Was around October/November and I had to wait for oil to warm up otherwise it'd be too thick and cause issues, even going over 2000rpm would've been problematic until up to a decent temperature. Had the option of just putting a lower lower visc. oil but would've meant low pressure issues when pushing on.
No bypass valve on the supercharger meant 22mpg was the absolute best I could get even at 50 or 70mph on a motorway for example.

Next up would be the soft-top MK3 MX5 at just over 2 months, couldn't live with the road-noise in it whilst cruising at 70mph.

Was it the mods that made the brz unsuitable for daily use?

On Holiday · 12 Sep 2018 at 17:06

GhostWKD · 12 Sep 2018 at 17:11

remy87 said:
If the car is reliable why not? There might be some attachment to the car as well.
We all don't have money to waste on a car every 6 months or so.

I wish I did Even then I would like an older quick ish car and make it my own.

True, but so many different cars out there to experience... I think maybe I just bore easily!

Though not sure I agree on 'wasting' money on a car every 6 months, unless you're buying new or nearly new where obviously you would be. If you're buying 10+ year old cars a short ownership won't be a waste of money bar a problem with the car or an issue with the price it's bought or sold at

rebel rebel · 12 Sep 2018 at 17:14

WoodyUK said:
Yep! It was running 10w60 in it which was effectively too thick at low temps causing too much pressure until it's properly warmed up, so there would be excess wear/risk if driving before it reached temps.
I believe there are Supercharger kits with bypass valves so reasonable MPG is probably possible on other set-ups.

Fun car though and wouldn't hesitate to own one again, though I'd probably go the MX-5 route now.

That's a relief because I'm considering buying a Gt86, they're just coming into my price range now! And 90% of my driving is small distances. So wouldn't really want to sit there letting the car warm up before setting off.

SexyGreyFox · 12 Sep 2018 at 17:38

Scania said:
My partner had a Ford Kuga for a week before selling it back to the dealer as she simply couldn’t “gel” with it.

I remember the original owner of Millennium/OCUK who was called Pete bought a £25,000 car which his wife hated and they lost £7,000 in less than a week.
That's the story he told me anyway.

Scania · 12 Sep 2018 at 20:06

SexyGreyFox said:
I remember the original owner of Millennium/OCUK who was called Pete bought a £25,000 car which his wife hated and they lost £7,000 in less than a week.
That's the story he told me anyway.

She lost about £700 which whilst being a lot for a weeks ownership was a drop in the ocean compared to that!

Nasher · 12 Sep 2018 at 20:38

rebel rebel said:
That's a relief because I'm considering buying a Gt86, they're just coming into my price range now! And 90% of my driving is small distances. So wouldn't really want to sit there letting the car warm up before setting off.

The standard oil is 0w20 which is very thin, so it won't be a problem.