Is 10 previous owners too many?

[Braxted]

I’m currently looking at a 1992 Lotus Elan se with about 75000 miles but 10 previous owners. I have never bought a car with so many previous owners, which does worry me slightly, the car is 26 years old but that would mean the owners change every 2 years 4 months on average. The current owner has had it for 1 year!

[dapinky]

there is no simple answer to this one - but length of each ownership is an indicator (as opposed to an 'average').

An original owner could have it for 2 years as a company car, then buy it himself.... 2 years later get a new company car so sells off the elan.... (now on its 3rd owner).

Next owner could pass away and his/her spouse keeps the car (now on 5th owner)

Next owner *could* have a crash which makes it Cat D, so it goes to insurance company (6th).

Someone buys the salvage at auction and repairs it (because he is a Lotus bodyshop) - keeps it as a 'demo' vehicle (7th)

A customer eventually persuedes him to sell, and becomes #8...

so it could be okay if it were as above.....

However, if the first owner smashed it up, it never got repaired right, and everyone since hasn't looked after it (and just tried to make a few quid), then it is best avoided.

As a comparrison, would you rather have a 1 owner vehicle which was either Metropolitan Police or Hertz Van Hire, OR a 10 owner vehicle where everyone knew what they were doing and looked after it?

For an elan, if (after the first 3 owners, who would have (hopefully) had it serviced by a Lotus garage), you had a range of owners who included, Will B, Paul Matty, Clemo, Muley, Rambo, Ray D - and even Dico - then you will never have a problem with it.......

..... however...... (no names included here for obvious reasons!)......

[Jamie N]

The only thing that's relevant is the actual condition of the car, go over it with a fine tooth comb and if ticks all the right boxes
and the price is right then buy it, 10 previous owners is a fair amount but its over 25 years, 1 of them might have been the supplying
dealer as well, the others may well have spent a bit keeping it good, only a viewing will tell you if that's the case or not.

Go and see it.

[Saltire]

Mine is a 1995 S2 with (currently) 64,000 miles up. There were three owners prior to me. The first two are fully documented, with all bills and MoTs, even down to replacement bulbs.

The third guy kept it under a tarp in his garden for four years, mostly on SORN, and recorded nothing. So when I bought it in 2015, it was basically good but tatty, and I’ve spent the last few years bringing it back to the standard I want. As tigerdog says “reassembly is the reverse of removal, but you swear in different places . . . “

Go and see it - condition and documentation are much more important than recorded mileage or number of owners.

[daveiow]

For reference-
Mine had 57k miles on it and I am the eighth owner
1st Frost’s demonstrater
2nd Had it for about 3 months (oddly about 3 miles from here)
3rd Properly used for about 5years
4th Ditto
5th Doctor who then registered it in his wife’s name
6th Doctors wife (they did about 1.5k miles in about 8 years
7th Gov on here (about 800 miles in 3 years)
8th Me 12k miles in 7years
So how many “proper owners” has it really had
David

[HJ2]

Doctor Who? .... Cool!
Hyper spanner in the tool kit then?

[Saltire]

Much more space in the Tardis than in an Elan

[daveiow]

[Kathryn]

Mine had 11 keepers before me, 18 and a half years old, and it’s not a bad car. I think they tend to be the sort of cars people keep for a year or two before moving onto something different for another year or two.

[simonbuk]

Convertibles have a lot more owners. Owners keep them for a summer or two and then might have enough of them.

You could find a two owner car and it be a piece of s**t........

[alan e]

I don't care how many owners a car may have had if its a good car its a good car and worth having, after all its only a number.