A few weeks back we had a topic about the oldest car so why not one on the shortest time.
In my case about 3 months in 1993 when I was made redundant.
In other ways it was zero time.
1981 contract hire company arranged delivery to Glasgow office - Cortina left London around 5 am and the engine lost all its oil after 10 miles - they apologised and said they would get back to me - 3 months later they phoned to say the car was ready (new engine) - fortunately another outfit had delivered a car in 2 weeks. They don't build Fords @ Dagenham anymore thankfully.
8/9 years later Wallace Arnold cars in Newcastle area arranged delivery - it did not get even 10 miles as the delivery driver left the keys in the car when he went to pick up the delivery paperwork. Somebody jumped in and ran off with it.
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About 12 hours.
I had bought a new Ford Escort as an office runabout. When I got the car home and looked at it in the evening, I realised the dealer had sold me a mk III instead of the new mk IV. (Note for pedants. The mk numbers are probably wrong. It was a long time ago.)
Crack of dawn the next day, I returned the car to the dealer, delivered all the paperwork and keys to their office. Stopped the cheque and cancelled the HP agreement.
Zero response - sorry, make that no response - from the dealer, some time later I got a letter from the HP company asking me for money. I wrote back, explaining the circumstances and effectively said "see you in court". I didn't hear another word.
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Over to you Stu............ or is that for another thread "the most cars owned in one year" :)
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A Seat Altea XL.
I ordered a new company one, only extra I specced was Black pearlescent paint.
It arrived, some three months later specced up to the eyeballs, leather heated seats, winter pack, Electric sunroof. some £3k's worth.
I hummed and haa-aad about telling the leasing company but told them anyway. Refused to pay any increase in P11D tho. Three months later. with 10k miles on the clock it was exchanged for a bog standard model.
The dealer took a bloodbath on that sale no doubt, it was his fault.
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>>Over to you Stu<<
15 minutes. I bought a Cavalier from a dealer I knew for £80, drove it across town and sold it to a right muffin for £200 there and then. Those were the days...
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>> >>Over to you Stu<<
>>
>> 15 minutes. I bought a Cavalier from a dealer I knew for £80, drove it
>> across town and sold it to a right muffin for £200 there and then. Those
>> were the days...
>>
Funny that, that is exactly what the sellers who sold all those clapped out cars to you think of you!
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I had a Megane for 4 weeks, but I decided to sell it after 1 week and agreed the trade in after 3 weeks, so it was either 1 or 3 weeks depending on how you're counting...
As mistakes go, that was a big one. Thankfully, I only lost £500 on it. It was worth every penny to get rid...
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22 minutes
guy came back said he couldnt insure car on his policy he had for his other car so the insurer wanted him to start a new insurance policy
i bought the car back for $200 less than he paid for it and trousered it
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In the days when the motor trade was based in Warren Street, central London, it was not unusual to buy and sell several cars as you drove down the street.
One of the old traders told me if you reached the end of the street and no one had stopped you to ask about the car, you knew you had bought a nail.
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>>They don't build Fords @ Dagenham anymore thankfully.
>>
But they do build Ford engines, which was the problem with your Cortina ... I had a tour of Dagenham in the early 70s when they were building the Cortina, and I'm not surprised it failed. Even with a tour going on around them the 'workers' were more interested in playing cards and drinking tea than building cars - I kid you not.
Anyway, back to the thread. The shortest I've had a car was 3 months - C4 Grand Picasso that gave me chronic back-ache and had to go!
Last edited by: Boxsterboy on Thu 28 Apr 11 at 10:45
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Minus 7 days.
I sold a car to a friend, was picking it up from another friend in a week's time.
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I bought one car of a friend simply for its engine. I drove the he car (with a new 12 month MOT) for about a month just make sure the engine was OK, then swapped into my car which had dropped a big end.
I delayed resigning from one job until my new company car arrived as I had a holiday booked - Was on three months notice, so worked about 10 weeks, went on holiday in the new car and was gone! Lovely car it was too - a Saab 9-5 HOT Aero estate.
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I owned an elderly Skoda Estelle for about a week in 1995. Enough said.
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Stand by for much snorting, huffing, puffing, and rude words from deepest Sussex.
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Ford focus: 1 month
Renault megane: 6 weeks
Mk2 Escort: Just over a week
Next shortest is about 3-4 months and theres been a few of them.
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About three months for me. One of the earliest MK4 Fieastas. Had a really good engine and had 67k on the clock despite its 11 owners! I now suspect the engine was a good one but it had been clocked.
The day I after I got it the door lock packed in.
Three weeks after ownership the clutch burnt out
I then had it MOT'ed early to see if it was worth replacing the clutch, I remember Ted came down to the ramp at the time to see if it was as bad as I had feared, the car was actually more of a shed than even I had imagined.
To be fair to get it through the MOT would have cost around £300, but then it needed a new clutch etc.
I sold it to a scouser for £250 for spares and repairs.
Longest I've ever had a car is just under a year, and that is my current Panda.
Simply terms
2007 - Fiesta 1 (MK3, N reg, discovered piston rings were shot) kept it 8 months
2008 - Fiesta 2 (MK4, N reg, body was shot)
2009 - Corsa (1999V, 11 months, had a lot of work done on this car, it repaid my by blowing its head gasket)
2010 - Fiesta 3 (actually my dads but it was registered in my name for a couple of months, we still have the car, which was purchased in 2007).
2010 - Fiat Panda (brand new) still have :).
Hopefully my Panda will balance things out :).
My generally buys bangers and keeps them for about four years, the best one was the Lada, we bought for £800 and it lasted six years.
The Fiesta seems to have been a good buy in terms of how long its lasted, £850 and four years later we still have it. Its nice because its a Ghia so has all the toys.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Thu 28 Apr 11 at 14:02
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I'm intrigued why you'd register your dad's Fiesta for a few months and then presumably change it back. Surely there was no need to do that even if you were the main driver. You'd need to have the insurance with you as main driver anyway if that was the case but why change the registered keeper?
Or am I missing something?
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A weekend. Bought a second hand Fiat for my wife on a Saturday morning and took it back on the Monday. Won't bore you with the details but it didn't work very well. Dealer exchanged it for a similar but working version without a murmer. Maybe he sold it most weeks...
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3 months.
Brand new XR2i which got written off when a car coming the other way unexpectedly turned across my path and I drove into the side of him at 40mph.
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Twenty minutes. Just long enough to discover that reverse gear didn't work and it wasn't a linkage problem. One of those little bob-tailed Citroen 3-door thingies, can't remember the model designation. Everything else about it was fine.
Never dared go to an auction again. Pathetic, eh?
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may of been Citreon Visa ? reverse broke all the time and it was internal failure in the gearbox ! or an AX ? Niether were brilliant
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Citreon Visa
No, the very bob-tailed one... LM or something like that. Not a big seller.
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>> No, the very bob-tailed one... LM or something like that. Not a big seller.
Was it the LN? Basically a redone Peugeot 104ZS following the takeover of Citroën by Peugeot.
A mate of mine had an LN and to me it looked like they'd simply made a cheaper, uglier and slower version of the Peugeot 104ZS which I used to have and quite liked apart from the fact that it rusted everywhere (including the roof).
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It was an LN.
I had a Bijou in the sixties though. It was annoyingly slow (425 cc) but it had a DS-type steering wheel and comfortable front seats. The gearbox was unbreakable being 2CV.
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>> much snorting
Estelle isn't everyone's cup of tea. Most examples were poorly maintained and there were a lot of nasty ones about.
Even a decent one needed to be driven, and most people can't drive any more than they can read, write or count.
I'm sure you can Chris S. It's that Zero I worry about. Huff, puff, asterisk bank.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Thu 28 Apr 11 at 15:47
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I had one of the first MGFs in late 1995, chassis number 1047 IIRC, the car they originally supplied to the dealer had a seriously misaligned windscreen surround so a replacement car was required and delivered about a month later, meanwhile I tooled around in a Rover 400 loaner. I then owned the replacement MGF for 8 months before selling it back to the supplying dealer for GBP 2,000 MORE than I paid for it new as they were (unbelievably in hindsight) a cult car at the time and in short supply. The replacement car still required a new gearbox (defective bell-housing casting), ECU and hood seals in the 8 months I owned it, no wonder MG-Rover went bust although the car was actually rather good to drive.
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Bought a H plate Fiesta 1.4S at 11am from a local dealer bargain bin. Got it insured at 1155 on a Saturday morning, just before the insurance company closed for the weekend.
blood y thing was stolen at 1920. Gave a few minutes of excitment to the local boys in blue. Helicopter, three patrol cars and a big dog and they still got away
Left my car to roll into a bollard...made a write mess....
I wouldnt care, but it was a lovely car that drove excellant...
Last edited by: Bazza1603 on Thu 28 Apr 11 at 19:20
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mk2 Astra 1.6L on a C-plate. SWMBO's first "proper" car.
Really nice example, and drove beautifully. Robbed from outside our flat by joyriders about four weeks after we bought it, and the day after I'd spent all afternoon replacing a leaking thermostat housing, and cleaning the thing.
Found with every panel kicked in, and every pane of glass broken. Written off by the insurers two days later.
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Collected a brand new Corsa 3dr from Dealer thursday lunch time, sold to a customer of mine the follwing tuesday and delivered to him on the thursday ! WOW
Won the car in a raffle 1 £ 1.00 ticket and the customer was just about to buy a brand new Toyota for £5500 so i said he could have the Corsa with less than 100 miles for 5K quickest deal I had done.
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Three months. A Mk2 Granada 2.8GL. I just wanted something to tool around in until I got something more sensible (more economical). Great car for £375. A motorised sofa.
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One week.
That was last year, bought a Rover 200 for either £250 or £300 and hated it, too small to get my deliveries in the back and just couldn't get on with it anyway. Saw a clean low mileage Astra with a new cam belt the same week and bought that, selling the Rover at a £50 loss.
I was so glad to see the back of the Rover the fifty quid I'd blown seemed like a bargain.
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I remember a mate got a new Sierra company car on the 1st August when the D-plates came in. By 5.00 that evening he had managed to write it off!
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>> on the 1st August ... By 5.00 that evening he had managed to write it off!
My boss had a E-reg Maestro for about 3 hours in the same circumstances. A lorry hit it up the jacksie whilst it was parked at a burger van at 11am on the morning he got it.
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In 1994-5 I went through an average of a car a month for two years. The shortest tenures were the Sierra which lasted 9 days before the engine seized, the Honda Accord which I bought from a colleague for £20 and sold at the local banger auction the same evening for £45, and the Mini which I bought unseen and sold to a mate having still not set eyes on it.
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About two weeks. It was my first car, an MGTC, which I think was the first post-war model. I filled the vertical rear petrol tank with (was it?) 12 1/2 gallons and drove about three miles before it caught fire. It is amazing how well a car burns.
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About 1 hour.
I part exchanged my 1929 Riley 9 for cash and a non running MG TA Tickford.. and sold the latter for scrap 1 hour later.
In hindsight, notone of my better deals.. but I was impecunious then...
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I bought a Sierra Sapphire in 1990 and kept it for a couple of months, however I think I only drove it once and that was from the dealer to home. I'd just switched jobs to one that didn't have a company car attached to it, so I bought the Sierra. I then discovered that I could keep the company car for 6 months and so it just sat in my garage. Then a friend wrote of his car and needed one quickly, so I sold it to him for what I had paid for it.
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My uncle bought a new Montego GTI in 1990. Collected it from the dealership on his way home from work at about 5:30 pm. Went out to put some rubbish in the bins at 7pm to see four youths driving off down the road in it.
He did get it back though.
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Feel a bit lame, but my shortest was 6 months - had a 1.8 LX Mondeo - dull but functional. My circumstances changed unexpectedly and I was able to treat myself to a factory ordered A4 Cabriolet 3.0 quattro.
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>> had a 1.8 LX Mondeo ... My circumstances changed ... treat myself to a factory ordered A4 Cabriolet 3.0 quattro
Changed indeed :-P can i interest you with investing into Skoda's beer & motoring fund with your lottery winnings? :-P
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>> He did get it back though
That's a shame. The only one worth having was the turbo, and maybe the diesel turbo estate as a workhorse. I've mentioned the turbo version before, I had one. Sometimes I wish I could get back into one of those cars and give it a bootful. The most fun I've ever had in a car. Despite the weak front wheel bearings and the Lucas electrics :)
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I think we've both gone misty eyed over the Turbo before. :-)
A mate had an early (C plate) one which had a few Motobuild tweaks. Very fast, very reliable (driveshafts aside). Found a pic of the very beastie recently.
tinyurl.com/3vo7t3p
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About 40 minutes...OK in reality I owned it for a week (or maybe two) but only had the keys for 40 minutes. Bought it at auction, paid up, drove it across the yard and discovered matrix was shot. Parked it up, and put it back in. Sold on at a loss of about a ton IIRC.... This was to replace a car that had died, and I also had others that were sick - I think at the time we owned 5 cars and only 1 was a runner!
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What is the shortest time you have had a car? - Duncan
