fattb

iTrader: (1)

Any thoughts ? the car is at a Subaru main dealer and has FSSH etc etc and is still under warranty

I know if i sell the car on in 6 months (unlikely) it won't be good, is there anyway i can check the warranty history ?

Just don't want a Lemon

Tony

ethanrob

iTrader: (3)

yeah!

HPI check it and look in the warranty book

MattW

My last Impreza is now 18months old (Jun 05), I was the second owner and therefore the current owner is the third.

Jacey Boy

Scoobys always have alot of owners, totally different from normal cars, alot of people buy them then cant afford to run them etc, dont be put off, I am the 5th owner on my sti and its 3 years old

GrahameS

Agree with that!! After a few months people probably think 'I'm not pouring all my money into the petrol tank of this!!'

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

I am owner no.7 of a MY01 WRX Wagon, FSSH, 54k and still under Subaru Warranty. Check and if your happy go on, go on, go on!

stilover

Yeah, I'd agree with that. They are quite expensive to run, unless you've budgeted for it of course. Can see how easy it is for people to be shocked at the running costs. Depreciation included.

fattb

iTrader: (1)

thanks ethanRob, having come from VAG cars i wasn't sure if the warranty work gets logged, up until a few years ago most Audi stealers weren't obliged to log it, which i found out at my cost

Typically do you find these cars have more owners than normal ? as people find them a little more extreme than they expected,

pslewis

Doubt thats true?

Mine has had ONE owner in 6 1/2 years and will probably have ONE owner for its entire life

I would not buy a car with 3 owners in 18 months ............ you just KNOW you are buying a pup!

And why do it? It's not as if it's hard to find an Impreza for sale?!

Pick and Choose - Pick and Choose - and do NOT buy a car which is showing 3 owners in 18months!

imprezarb5

try to find out who is listed as the current and previous owner. If one of the owners for example is International Motors / Subaru then it could have been a buy back from the manufacturer, which should ring alarm bells.

Agree that scoobys may suffer from numerous changes of ownership due to the buyers just not realising what they are buying. An enthusiast is likely to keep one for years, whereas somebody who just bought one on a whim may soon be put off by runnning costs etc. Imprezas and Evos for that matter are a completely different ownership experience than a BMW for example, more expensive to run but ultimately more rewarding in my opinion.

Personally, i would rather go for something with fewer enthusiast owners, particularly as its a buyers market anyway. There were nearly 300 Imprezas for sale on Pistonheads last time i looked!

MattW

Surely an enthusiast may also have bought several model versions in a short space of time and thus contributing to the high number of owners per car.???

imprezarb5

3 enthusiast owners in 18 months , i doubt it.

MattW

Well, the one I had was owned by someone on here who also had an MY05 WRX and now has an STi 06 PPP. He even had the Prodrive gear ****, STi tax disk holder etc. I bought it from him and it was my 5th Impreza. I sold it to a guy who was a scooby virgin, but have no doubt he bought it to cherish.

imprezarb5

there will always be exceptions. Personally i would ask to see a Warranty History print out from the selling dealer, before i considered purchasing it. I managed to get hold of mine from the supplying dealer, when buying my 2 1/2 year old STI. this gave me all the reassurance i was looking for, plus the obvious HPI check.

Jacey Boy

If the car is ok, then why be bothered about owners?, other makes yes, but evo's scoobys etc suffer quicker owners, also Ferrari's have lots of owners but minimal mileage

fattb

iTrader: (1)

Ok Thanks for the replies, TBH the car i am looking at is a MY05 STI with PPP for @ £17.5k it has done 11k, I will probably put 35k on it over the next 2 years so i am going to get buggered on a trade in anyway, providing the warranty/HPI is ok, i think i am going to go for it

Any further thoughts

Zuby

There is light at the end of the tunnel. I saw many 03 sti's with between 3-5 previous owners over a year ago!!!

Finally did find 1 with only 1 owner. You just dont know whether the car has been abused or not.

GazTheHat

Re-iterating what others have said, i don't think it's un-common to have several owners. Some get rid when they realise they can't afford it, or had the intention of just owning for a short while.

My car is an EU import. It was registered abroad by the garage, then by the first owner, so when i bought it, 1 year old i was the third owner.

I nearly lost my job, so would've had to sell it, that would've been 3 previous owners in 18m too. The car is a minter!

So it shouldn't be that off-putting, it happens. Maybe a bargaining tool...?

paul2070

Bear in mind that the 3 owners may well have been

1.Dealer Demo or Pre Registered to inflate monthly sales targets.

2.

3.Both or one may have bought and not liked it................i know i looked at a 53 plate STI PPP last year and did'nt rate it either as a driving experience or for comfort..............plus i think Classics are best!!!

You can also contact the DVLA who will give you previous owners etc for a price(but i think you have to own the car).

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

3 owners in 18 months; wouldn't give it a second look. IMHO this is probably down to one of two reasons:

1) There is something wrong with the car, maybe not something serious, but something annoying that no-one has been able to resolve

2) It was bought by people who couldnt afford to run it/had no intention of keeping it long term and just wanted something to rag the nuts off and have a laugh in as a short term proposition.

In either case, I'd suggest you'd be beter off looking elsewhere unless you get a long test drive, a comprehensive specialist inspection and a good discount!

ns04

Steve001

iTrader: (7)

Check out the cars history, if your happy buy it and enjoy

as said b4 the car could have been pre registered etc etc

for example, if the guy who has just got an Astra VXR (see other tread in general) had purchased a pre-reg car and the sold it back after not even going through his first tank of petrol the 3rd owner could have been registered in just a couple of weeks

good luck

Steve

paul2070

Also,i for example have owned 6 cars since February,i just love cars,and that is all(fast)cars and i feel i MUST experience ALL of them,however thay are all meticulously looked after,always warmed and cooled properly,have no expense spared on maintenence,and only have the best modifications done.I have lost a of money on a couple of the cars,but it is my hobby.

I also consider the fact that while owning a car for upto 9 months(a long time for me)i may add a good 12 months mileage to a car,so while in physical time i may not of had it long,in mileage terms,i have.

I would expect that if the car you are looking at was a demo/pre reg,it done no miles then,and i suspect one of the next owners put very little of the miles on,therefore 1 owner did do the majority of the time in the car.

When i looked at a BMW 535D back in March,i would have been the 5th owner and it was 9 months old and 35k,but only due to the dealer registering it to themselves twice,so really "only"2 owners.

Gerald-S1

I was the 3rd owner of my car. 3 owners in 3 years. I sold it to a 4th. The car was great and it was only my circumstances that required me to sell. I would recomend that car to anyone.

nik52wrx

When i buy a car it is either brand new or one owner and low mileage, i feel safer that way. Pity for me its the wife driving new cars when my last two have been two or three years old.
I would think that a car with three owners ,all with no intention of keeping the car long, will have probably ragged the **** off it and not followed the warm up cool down way of life.
There are plenty of Impreza's to choose from so i would look around as
you are obviously having concerns hence your post.
Nik.

Shark Man

Number of owners on a V5 can be misleading.

It can occur if the car was on a contract lease (owner gets a new car every year). Also, if the car has been in the hands of a home based dealer (pretending to be private ) and he filled the form in (most don't, but the odd one do) It'll strike up an extra owner in a short time. As does passing a car on in the family (say, giving it to the missus or son/daughter- some people do actually fill in the V5 to say its a new owner, god knows why).

And sometimes the DVLA ***** up, I registered a change of address and the V5 came back with an extra owner, I noticed it and had it corrected, others might not notice.

hoskib

iTrader: (1)

i'm the 3rd owner of my 05 sti, had no problem with the purchase.

first owner had it for a year, 2nd owner had it for 1 month, then me.

sounds dodgy on the face of it with the 2nd owner, but the guy had his reasons for selling and was going through a self confessed mid life crisis.

get the car checked, go with your gut feeling from the current owner, do any homework you can re: previous owners and if you like it, buy it

jh1

theres so many out there so leave it alone unless they do you a good deal.

Blueblaster

Well, yes actually . If you are doing 35k miles over the next two years then you are probably going to spend a lot of time on the motorway where essentially any car will do. Now REALLY think about the running costs. And by this I mean think how you will feel handing over a fifty pound note every 250 miles. It is not a question of whether you can afford it, but rather whether you will enjoy affording it.

When the novelty of the car wears off and you realise that you can't use it's straight line speed very often and will never live to explain how you explored it's handling limitations, you'll start wondering why you are spending more than twice as much as you need to to sit in traffic listening to the world's worst stereo. If you can afford to buy an STI then, provided you aren't an 18 year old doing 50,000 miles per year, you can afford to run it. The reason why these cars have so many owners is not because of the running costs per se, but rather that you don't feel like you are getting your money's worth.

fattb

iTrader: (1)

So in comparison apart from the GTI i have now (which i don't like) i have had an Audi TT for the last 2 years which was costing me £1000 in servicing and tyres every 15k miles, and i guess fuel was costing about £45 every 250 miles (1/2 town and 1/2 mway) driving do you think the Scoob will cost way more than this ? I'm kinda guessing an extra £20 a week in fuel,

Does anyone think it will cost way more than this ?


Tony

Blueblaster

FWIW I think EVO got about 30mpg out of their Golf GTI while they got about 20mpg out of their long term Impreza. If you were driving a TVR with a terrific interior I would say fair enough, but the people who get the most out of the car when it is just trundling about are the ones who can see the outside. Inside it is as dull as ditch water. I came from a 30+mpg CTR to an STI and even when pressing on I would get 250 miles out of 35-40 quid out of the CTR. When pressing on in the STI I would get 200 miles out of 50 quid. It doesn't sound a lot, but it slowly grinds away at you because you are sitting in a very cheap cabin and are not able to exploit it's capabilities.

Let me give you an analogy. Think how you feel when you get a pay price which takes you over the next £1000 mark. For example, an extra 150 quid per month that takes you over £2000 for the first time. All of a sudden your pay begins with a 2 and it feels great even though you aren't earning that much more money. It is the reverse with crap fuel economy in the Subaru. It is not a massive difference, but it enough to make you question how much benefit you are actually getting out of a car like this. Imagine putting an old Escort interior in your Golf adding 30% to your fuel bill. I'll give it a rest now because I am going to get flamed, but really think about this with your head because a lot of people have followed their heart and spent a lot of unnecessary money. Good luck.