How many owners is too many?

I've just been pondering an advert for a car for sale.

If you were looking a model of car known to require the maintenance and attention that was more common in the past would you baulk at 8 owners on an 8 year old car?

Having been employed by an Alfisti, though who admittedly could have charged all the maintenance to the company I know he didn't change his Alfas that often.

I think 8 owners over 8 years would make me wonder regardless of the make and model of car involved.

I would walk away to be honest

a bit much, but then i have had 3 cars in 18mnths and all left me in A1 condition. (and darren 156 - has had too many to count )

most people keep a good one tho

Reminds me of a trader I knew back in the 1960's. Selling a Bentley, He confirms "just one owner".
Picks up the old green log book and sees that it is full.

"He just changed his name a lot!"

What AV said

It really depends on how well the car has been looked after - although 8 in 8 years seems a lot

Seems some people change their cars like I change my socks.

Originally Posted by Monza96

Seems some people change their cars like I change my socks.

Once a year?

Originally Posted by HSTDriver

Once a year?

I am the fifth owner of my Alfa in as many years and it hasn't gone wrong.....yet. I know the last one only had it a few months before trading it in as the running costs were too high. Dont know about the others but the car seems in good nick.

you can easily buy a total shagger thats only had one owner, just check the car as per normal and see what its like!

Originally Posted by hansthebear

you can easily buy a total shagger thats only had one owner, just check the car as per normal and see what its like!

very true

As has already been covered....any amount of good owners is not a problem ...it only takes 1 bad owner to make it not worth having.

Years ago everyone wanted a low mileage.Now with better engineering etc.a high mileage is not a problem and any manufacturing defects should have been thrown up ...which would not have been the case with a low miler.

Pomeo

I would be more interested in condition, service history and the price.

It is not ideal, but it wouldn't put me off if everything else was ok.

My wifes previous car that we passed on to our son shows a similar history. In our case out of the 6 registered keepers, 5 of them are us, me ,my wife or my son.It kept being changed according to who insured it and whose name needed to be on the V5. I'm sure this happens a lot now and could account for some of the 8 owners in 8 years as in post 1.

I think it can depend on the car.

I'm the 9th owner of my GTA, I'd say part of that is that running costs are STUPID, a lot of people might see it as a viable daily driver but at less than 200 miles to a tank it gets very expensive very quickly.

When I was looking around for a performance car I looked at a few TVRs and Maserati's which had comparable owner histories, I think a lot are impulse buys and the real costs of running this type of car kick in fairly quickly with the realisation that the buyer could afford to buy the car, but not to run it so they get flipped fairly quickly.

Same trader in the 1960's (see above)
Advertises a car "One lady owner from new"

The car came from a government department auction.

Lady owner? The Queen.

I could never understand the "from new" bit either. Alternative could be "one owner fron secondhand".