Car check please

[funbobby]

Rf17 mvl. Any info much appreciated

[cj10jeeper]

Presume you're looking at it in Sytner Cardiff
Nice spec of car
Had several price drops over the last month from £41k to current £39k so clearly looking to move it quickly
At least 3 owners to date
If you look at it check the tyres as they have had advisory on the fronts for the last 2 mot's and covered 4k in the time

[funbobby]

Yes that’s the one, emailed them about the tyres but not heard back yet. How can I see how many owners it’s had ?

[cj10jeeper]

Open a free Carsnitch account. You can get a Vehicle check at no cost and see the dates and owner charges in the history.

[funbobby]

Thanks

[Tim Atkinson]

Had several price drops over the last month from £41k to current £39k so clearly looking to move it quickly
At least 3 owners to date

They may simply be following group rules on pricing, I wouldn’t read anything more than that into the changes (AutoTrader favours adverts where the price changes frequently)…. I’d also argue that the number of owners is completely immaterial. Here is our take on that point:


Front tyres aren't a big deal, just over £150 each at present for P-Zeros; that, of course, cuts both ways in this instance.

[cj10jeeper]

Tim
I’m simply providing public domain information on the car. It’s up to the person asking how they interpret the responses. On the aspect of tyres if someone is prepared to drive around for 2 years on worn tyres it does beg the question of how much love and care they have devoted to it.
I disagree with your view on multiple owners, but as you say you can have a car with 10 owners that’s good or one with a single owners that’s poor.
Of course group policies often drive price changes, wait another week and the car will likely be cheaper

[funbobby]

3 owners in 7 years seems pretty normal to me, certainly wouldn’t run one of these on worn tyres though !

[Tim Atkinson]

Tim
I’m simply providing public domain information on the car. It’s up to the person asking how they interpret the responses. On the aspect of tyres if someone is prepared to drive around for 2 years on worn tyres it does beg the question of how much love and care they have devoted to it.
I disagree with your view on multiple owners, but as you say you can have a car with 10 owners that’s good or one with a single owners that’s poor.
Of course group policies often drive price changes, wait another week and the car will likely be cheaper

No issue with that, and as I said, the tyre issue hints at lack of diligence. In fact, it hints at someone hanging on to a car they don’t care about which would better have been passed on to someone else (but that would have added another owner).

You chose to highlight the number of owners, although it is by no means remarkable. So please, humour me: you say you disagree about multiple owners… May I ask you to say why…? What reason lies behind your disagreement? Do you have a cogent argument why <more keepers=a worse car>? I would REALLY love to hear one!

[cj10jeeper]

Tim
I’m simply providing public domain information on the car. It’s up to the person asking how they interpret the responses. On the aspect of tyres if someone is prepared to drive around for 2 years on worn tyres it does beg the question of how much love and care they have devoted to it.
I disagree with your view on multiple owners, but as you say you can have a car with 10 owners that’s good or one with a single owners that’s poor.
Of course group policies often drive price changes, wait another week and the car will likely be cheaper

No issue with that, and as I said, the tyre issue hints at lack of diligence. In fact, it hints at someone hanging on to a car they don’t care about which would better have been passed on to someone else (but that would have added another owner).

You chose to highlight the number of owners, although it is by no means remarkable. So please, humour me: you say you disagree about multiple owners… May I ask you to say why…? What reason lies behind your disagreement? Do you have a cogent argument why <more keepers=a worse car>? I would REALLY love to hear one!

I actually don't think that overall we differ on what to look at in cars. Let me first of all step back though. I did not draw any conclusion about number of owners and certainly not say or imply it a higher number automatically equated to a worse car. It most certainly doesn't and would be foolish to say so. I actually have no idea what a ‘right’ number of owners is. A 1960’s E Type with 20 seems good to me, but the JLR dealership who sold me a 18 month old JLR XF and concealed the owners (5 plus me) even when asked. I discovered on the V5C. He was threatened with court action following an independent assessment that it’s value was materially reduced and refunded the full value of the car plus costs. JLR stepping in sourced a replacement and the sales person was later fired by the dealership.

That aside my argument is simple:

Most people on here are looking to paint a picture of the car they are considering. They likely already know the model, mileage, spec, etc. from the advert so are looking to colour in their picture before a visit/test drive. So, they want to gather detail of service history, MOT, advisories, fails, previous owners and ideally who they were (private owners, factory, demonstrator, manager car, track day, etc. for sports cars). That will add into their wider weighted assessment when viewing of the quality and condition of the car and that’s what their buying decision will be made on, alongside other factors such as price, finance, trade in, warranties, etc. No one metric is likely a deal breaker, although I’d argue service history could be.

Whilst the number of owners is not an automatic indicator of condition it certainly is in the minds of buyers of desirability, if not when buying then when selling and likely used as a factor to haggle price.
You clearly like your reference to number of owners of houses so let me use one from that segment. Rarely do builders ever number a property with number 13, rather just skip it. Clearly there is no rationale reason as it’s just a number on the door, but builders cannot sell them as easily as buyers don’t want them, they take longer to sell and typically at a lower price. Tower blocks equally rarely have a 13th floor for residential use. Parallels can be drawn for significant number of owners that it cannot simply be dismissed.

Aside my view Motorway have an interesting guide on it and conclude:

Although there isn’t one fixed rule linking the number of car owners to vehicle valuation, single-owner vehicles generally retain more value over time than those that have been passed through multiple hands.
Does The Number Of Owners Impact The Value Of Your Car? | Motorway

If you want to explore this more then I suggest open a new specific thread and leave OP to his car search.