Number Of Previous Owners: 0

Question. Does a car's number of previous owners bug that many people here? Reason I ask is that I've been sniffing around a number of XMs and CXs, and some of the nicer ones have 6 or more owners. And that puts me off.

There are some good reasons for this (well, I like to think so). The first is that I wonder why people would only have the car for a short time, and start to imagine all these strange smells and noises that would make me get shot of it just a few months after I've bought it myself.

And of course when you come to sell a car, telling a prospective buyer that it has 1 prior owner makes the sale that much easier than if you tell him he'll be owner number 9. Or whatever.

I just wondered if you chaps had any thoughts on this, and whether you'd share how many owners your cars had. I really don't mind being told I'm obsessing over immaterial aspects of a car's history

I think these cars attract many different people who don't have the knowledge/understanding and
commitment to keep them long term.

Additionally, I've lost count of the times I've read a seller bubbling enthusiasm and waxing lyrical
about a recently acquired new Citroen 'toy' and complained that their spouse didn't see the same
benefits or attractions and the car had to go asap! Maybe it's the thought they'll rarely see their
hubby as he'll be permanently outside fettling and lavishing attention there instead...

Many folk like the idea of an interesting Citroen but get cold feet when something odd looks like it'll
cost a few quid! It's all in the mind; many times someone stops to ask me about mine and admire
the oddness of them and agree they'd love one but say I'm 'very brave' - does this translate as daft?

I judge on condition, not mileage or number of keepers.

Andrew

This post has been edited by Andmcit on November 08, 2008 02:10 pm

The number of keepers means more to me if its a fairly new car. My parents once bought a 6 months old car to find that they were the 3rd owner! It was returned to the garage 2 weeks later for a better model! Although it also had more miles on it than the garage stated. Bloody Reg Vardy (or what were!)

On older cars i dont think it matters much at all, i dont even know how many owners my Xm has had. I think its 3 at the most, in fact ill go check!

It makes no difference though.

With a car that has had a fair few owners (say 6+) you start to wonder if there is something wrong with it, which comes apparent when you live with the car for a while.

Dont let the number of owners put you off, in reality it means very little, and rarely effects the value of the car.

Of course its nice to buy a one owner car, with all the history and you find its have every penny spent on keeping it tip top. However its not always like that, you often find great cars which have had a fair few owners.

CXs being in classic car status now, they probably pass hands faster, as people will buy them for a summer car, or a project and then sell on etc.

You say about smells? Do you mean mechanical or smells left behind by its past owners

My Xm seems to smeel really nice inside, it always has done, especially if its been stood in the sun for a while. Although some cars have bad smells, you can do everything to clean the interior and get rid, but its always there

Dont let number of owners put you of though Phil, not on on older cars anyway.

Chris.

Edit: ive checked, mine has had 4 previous owners all within the first 6 years of its life.

Not that that matters, we have had it 6 years now, it feels like our car, and only ever has been our car, if you see what i mean. Even though its 12, it still feels like new inside.

This post has been edited by Citroenmad on November 08, 2008 02:33 pm

Three of the four XM's I've owned were bought from people who had bought the car as a stop gap, (because it was cheap) until they got the car they wanted. This can be seen on the log book............several short term owners. I think this happens a lot with older cars.

Also, I was talking to a used car dealer recently and he told me that due to new regulations he now has to register all his cars in his own (company) name. If this is true it will add to the numbers of previous owners shown on most log books in the future.

Thats right minijet, and why our 6 months old car had 2 previous owners. After we sent it back the garage was the fourth owner and the next owner the 5th! Of a six month old car! Which devalued it quite a bit!

Although if you write to the DVLA after olnly owning a car for a week or two they can take your name off the log book.

As far as odors from previous keepers goes, one of the nicest riding Xm's I've still got is a 2.0Si
s1.5 that was originally owned by Penguin Books! That said, the guy I bought it off was Pakistani
and while there's nothing wrong with that, had somehow managed to completely impregnate into
every fibre of the interior a quite amazingly aggressive curry/food smell that makes the car
unbearable to sit in longer than 10minutes. I bought it for no money as it's head gasket was shot
and planned to scrap it for spares I needed but I still have it as I otherwise loved the drive!

It really does still drive like I'd imagine a hovercraft would over broken ground etc!! I'll really have
to exorcise the odour when I get the engine sorted!

Andrew

One other thing I've found with a few one owner cars I've bought over the years, is the car is
allowed to sink into a degree of stupor with the ingrained rut the car remains in day in day out
with the same driver.

So, the rear door being jammed shut won't cause a problem as that door is never used, the rear
windows don't work but nobody ever sits in the back, the door mirror held together by gaffer tape
as it still does a grand job etc etc are allowed to accumulate and fester whereas a car passed
through many owner's hands will enjoy bouts of lavished enthusiasm as the honeymoon period
see's grand ideas and expenditure with a new door/lock, mirror etc etc and much needed fettling
to raise it's bar somewhat...

Andrew

Very true actually.

It just shows it always pays tyo keep on top of the cars issues. I think its more people forget and just take it as thats what their car is like and live with it. Rather than fixing it up.

Heh. This is an exceedingly good point

I agree totally with the view on the hidden dangers of older cars (I'm talking 20 years or more really) that have only had one owner - especially the archetypal 'one elderly owner from new'.

You often find these cars have had endless DIY bodges in their later life - emulsion-ed over newspaper and filler repairs, silicon-ed windscreen surrounds etc.

And the local MOT tester has become rather more lenient each year the car has been presented. After all, 'old Sid only ever drives it to the allotment and back'.

I've certainly gone to view such cars and it's been apparent they should never have passed the test they're being sold with and certainly won't pass one with a new owner.

When I sell my Renault 30, forty years from now, long after I've run out of energy to do proper welded repairs, I suspect the new owner will be saying the same of me and my car!

About 2 years ago we traded our 95 Activa for a 99 XM 2.0 auto VSX.

What drew us to it was the fact it was a ONE owner car, low mileage, had full service history, cruise control and climate too. Plus it was a T reg so a nice late model too.

We paid over the odds for it, as we thought we were getting a good one.

To be honest i dont know how we ended up with such a bad car! We are very picky when it comes to buying cars, they generally have to be just right. However we saw this in a slightly dull showroom and then again in the rain outside. So not the best conditions - we should have walked away until a better day came. However we didnt.

The cruise soon gave up and the climate was very inefective too. We had that regassed and it was fine. We had the spheres done and it rode and drove very nicely.

It only came with one key and not the remote key either. So we went to its old owners house (we bought it from a garage) to see if they had it in a draw or something. They were not keen to see us, we started to ask questions about the car, which were answered abruptly and the question "has it ever been in an accident" was dismissed. It obviously had been:

Now the issues, looking at it closely it had obviously had a lot of paintwork in its life, you could see red paint pearing through the silver on the front wing, so maybe a second hand wing on there.

The auto gear box selector was so stiff it felt like it would break of each time you moved it, the steering was really heavy. We found that the front tyre had been run flat and the sidewall hugely thinned out as a result making it weak, so got some new tyres and that cured that.

The worst was to come, it had to go to a garage to have an exhaust fitted, so I followed behind it ready to pick my dad up from the garage. The car looked to be crabbing slightly and it was down at one side! Not back or front but one side!

After that we found that sometimes it would ride level and sometimes it would be down on the passenger side. We fiddled on with it for a while and could not find what would cause that. We had it to a Citroen specialist for a months or so who could not work it out either!

Eventually we sold it, only having had it about 4 months. Good job too, there was something not at all right with that, im sure it had seen quite an accident at some point

If thats not a good enough reason to try and not judge a car on its number of owners i dont know what is

It also made us take much more care when buying cars now.

This post has been edited by Citroenmad on November 08, 2008 10:36 pm

Hi all

I always go by what the car looks like, checking for build ups of old burnt oil under the oil filler, good clean coolant, golden engine oil, bright green lhm, feathering on the shoulders of the tyres or evidence of wheelspinning that sort of thing. It doesnt matter one bit if its had 1 owner or 100, after all John wayne could of been the sole owner for 15 years, but the car would be a wreck!
I think many people perceve that one owner from new adds value to the vehicle because many owners indicates that the car has been nothing but trouble which i suppose stems from the days when you would get a 'Friday car' that was never built right in the first place.

D

One of the best XMs I have had was my first Mk2 2.1 estate, I bought it at about 240k it had been a taxi! The only real way to find out if its a goodun or not is to give it a thourough examination, if its your first one ask someone from the club to go with you and vet it. Or you could go for a test drive and air any misgivings you have on here, I'm sure there are many knowledgable members that could reassure you or otherwise. Even then, there is no guarantee that something will not go wrong soon after you buy it - after all it is an XM!

Peter.N.

This post has been edited by Peter.N. on November 08, 2008 11:51 pm

Guilty! Wanting to change my ways because I really don't wanna drive anything but Xm's for some
time to come but lacking in time, money and space.

FWIW I am the third owner of both my cars, although the VSX was passed on by the old boy who had to give it up because he kept dinging it on the garage to a relative who sold it to me. The Prestige did 80k in first 2 years so I wasn't so bothered about the 114k on it when I got it.

Good luck with the Curry smell, had probably been used to carry curry to festivals.

I was put off the first XM I saw when I first decided I wanted one in 98 when the seller admitted he was a butcher and had obviously been hauling carcasses around in the boot. It was quite a nice looking gold S1 but not an Sei. and also had outstanding credit, but being a vegan I really was put off by the butcher background. I didn't buy the black Sei I saw the same day either, that had lots of owners and miles.

I reckon dynamite may be the only answer to shift it!

As far as living with the accumulated wrinkles, it's fine if you don't plan to sell it on and
are happy to live with it the way it is yourself!

Andrew