Cars are usually a long-term commitment. Even if you’re leasing, you’re usually going to have the car for at least a couple of years. During that time, you will fall somewhere on the spectrum between adoring that purchase or feeling furious every time you think of the vehicle. But some ownership stints are shorter than your average high school relationship. What was the shortest time you’ve ever owned a car, and why?
I generally consider myself someone who is in it for the long haul. I’ve been with my wife for over five years and am looking forward to still being together decades from now. I still have my second-ever car, my 2012 Smart Fortwo, that I bought new. I also still have my third-ever car, a 2016 Smart Fortwo, and my fourth car, a 2005 Smart Fortwo. If I love a car it’s almost impossible to pry it away from me. I’m unlikely to ever sell these three Smarts, or my Smart diesel or my more recently acquired Smart Cabriolet.
I’ve also been finding other cars that I want to keep long-term, too, like my 2006 Volkswagen Touareg, my 2002 Nova Bus RTS-06, and my 2008 Saturn Sky Red Line. Certainly, it would be a subzero day in Death Valley before I let go of my 1976 Suzuki RE-5 or my 2005 Buell Lightning XB9SX CityX.
But I haven’t always been like this. There was a time that, aside from the Smarts, a vehicle in my possession was lucky if it stuck around for longer than a month. My shortest stint of car ownership was easily my 1991 Ford Festiva. I’ve written about this car before, so I’ll keep it short.
My Festiva, which cost me $500, was a real pile that had sat in a field for at least three years. There was a giant rust hole in one of the doors that had been covered up with a patch of metal from an old dryer that was self-tapped into place. One of the rear axle’s mounting points was almost completely rotted away. The brakes were also sold discs of rust, and it was so bad that applying the brakes did not scrub the rust off.
The worst was the fuel tank, which had giant holes at the seam, meaning that you couldn’t fill it past half. It wasn’t long before the gas tank return line broke off of the top of the tank, making that situation so much worse. My modifications made the car even worse still. I removed the doors and windows and then attacked the wheel wells with a reciprocating saw so I could fit bigger wheels on it. I then daily drove the thing for a month in a Chicago winter, probably leaking gas all over the place and ruining my winter coat. Shoot, the seatbelts were held in place with zip-ties. They would have done nothing in a crash.
The Festiva was, without a doubt, the worst car I have ever owned. I decided to put it out of its misery only a month into ownership after the car blew a brake line at an off-road park. That night, my friends gave it a sort of funeral by ramming it until it rolled over.
Yet, shockingly, there was a vehicle I owned for an even shorter amount of time. The crown for shortest stint goes to a 2005 Honda Rebel that I owned for less than a month. I thought I’d love a Rebel as a first bike, but didn’t, and got rid of it lightning quick.
How about you? What was your shortest ownership stint for a vehicle?
My high school graduation gift was my stepfather’s 1991 Ranger. I only got to drive it about two weeks before some asshat ran a redlight and totalled it. Even worse, I spent several hundred dollars of my precious savings fixing and upgrading the truck only to have that money go down the drain. The other driver tried to dispute liability for the accident, and our adjuster said he was going to assign partial blame to me because I was a teenager. To top it off, my parents used some of the insurance money for other bills and got me a 1988 Olds Cutlass Ciera (bird crap white with red interior).
Does zero count?
A guy who worked (as a temp) for my dad wanted to move to another city and needed cash. He talked Dad into buying his Galaxie convertible for $200 (which was a not-unreasonable sum for a large used car during the oil crisis) so he would have some cash for the move. Dad brought the car home, and took the family for a ride, and told me it would be my car when I turned old enough to drive in a few years.
A day or two later, he found out that the guy didn’t have the title for the car. It had been financed, and the previously undisclosed balance was more than the car was worth. It was cheaper to take the $200 hit and give the car to the holder of the title.
Didn’t even officially own it, online auction through a local auction house, the truck I was looking at sold for way more than expected, the next lot up was a 15 year old Toyota tacoma with high miles but undercoating, that drove, I hadn’t seen it when I was at the lot but only one bid, I bid $1500 and won, went to pick it up that weekend,and it turns out the undercoating had been sprayed on after everything had rusted paper thin I sat in the seat and the bracket pushed through the floor, we got to looking and parts of the frame wiggled like the undercoating was all that was holding it together, my dad was with me and he was friends with one of the auctioneers, managed to void the sale because of the undisclosed problems and got my money back same day.
1980 canary yellow Grand Prix with a shit brown landau top. You could open the trunk and see your feet. Only held approximately $7 in gas. Back bumper held on by a ratchet strap. My winter beater blew it’s master cylinder, I needed a car. Bought it from an acquaintance for $50 (what the junkyard said they’d give her) drove it for about a week and a half, sold it for $250.
My 2005 Toyota Corolla. It was a manual, it was *fine*, but I tricked myself into buying it as a commuter while I overhauled my beloved 1983 RN38 Hilux. I immediately hated it the moment the reality set in, so I busted ass and paid it off a year early only to have a drunk driver blow through a stop sign on my way to work and t-bone the damned thing about a week after the pink slip showed up in the mail.
It worked out because I was able to use the money from the total to buy my 1996 T100 pickup that ended up being my all-time ultimate favorite vehicle ever that i drove for about ten years.
My friends and I flew out to Los Angeles with the goal of buying two vehicles off Craigslist and driving them home to western PA. The idea was to buy something we could flip and not loose the $1000 it would have cost for the one way rental. I ended up purchasing an awesome 1988 Jeep Comanche SporTruck. Drove it home in an epic road trip and kept it the summer. Sold it in the fall, (first Jeep Comanche ever sold on BaT). I immediately regretted selling it as it was such an awesome and insanely rust free vehicle. The paint was not great and the body had a lot of dents but man it was clean. It took me three years to find the perfect one to replace it, eventually finding a very high mileage but super original 1990 Comanche Eliminator with every option I wanted. Specifically the 4.0L, AX15 manual transmission, 4×4 and bucket seats with AC.
6 weeks. 1983 Cadillac Coupe deVille. Home from college for Spring Break in 1996. My brother (still in HS) has a double header baseball game. I go to watch and hang out with my mom. 2 hour break between the games. I remembered hearing on the radio the previous day that my favorite station is doing a Promotional Giveaway at a nearby dealership where someone will “Win” a car for $5. So we do go down, long story short I enter and I win.
The car that I “WON” and paid $5 for was a 1983 Cadillac Coupe deVille. It was such a pile of sh!t. It looked great but mechanically it was toast. It barely made it out to the street for me to park it at the curb before it died. Ultimately got it back to my parents house. There was no way that me being a broke college kid would be able to get this thing running well enough to travel the three hours back and forth to school. I was definitely better off with my 1977 Dodge Aspen wagon with 300K+ miles on it.
It stayed parked at my parents house until the day the title came in. I went back to pick up the car and title, and immediately drove it to a We Buy Used Cars lot… and sold it to them for $300.
That was a better result than returning it and insisting on a refund of your five dollars! GM strikes again.
4 months: 1988 VW Fox wagon was rear-ended at a stoplight by a hotel shuttle van near the airport, and I wasn’t even in the car (boyfriend driving)
2007 Honda Fit, about a year. It was just too small. I couldn’t get the seat adjusted so that I could reach the steering wheel and not hit my knee on it when working the clutch. It’s a shame really, because it was a fine car otherwise.