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?
A very ratty 1971 Buick Centurion convertible. Bought it from a friend for $300 who had paid $250 for it, spent a week trying to street-park it in Minneapolis, got two parking tickets, sold it for what I paid for it a week later. Never even got around to transferring the title. Only time I’ve ever floated one.
I think about 2 and a half years. I bought a 10 year old Suzuki SX4 in 2019. Then Covid happened and I didn’t need to commute to work any more. Got rid of it at the end of 2021.
I’m a long term owner. The shortest for me was a 2004 Astro that I bought for band touring. It was pretty good for that and didn’t leave us stranded anywhere. Otherwise it was terrible. After 3 years my touring days were over with the arrival of my 1st kid, and I swapped it out for a Honda Element. I was so sad to wreck the Element after only 8 years and 130K miles.
Less than 3 days. I bought a truck late on a Friday, parted it out over the weekend, and delivered the remains to the scrap yard on Monday. And by ‘remains,’ I mean I cut the truck in half. It rolled into the yard on its own four wheels, but the pieces left on a trailer.
Edit to add: That was 15-odd years ago. The pieces were used to restore 2 other trucks, and I used the back half of the frame to build a trailer that I still use to this day. So you could say that I still own about 1/8th of this truck! 😛
I had a hot rodded V-8 CJ-5 that only lasted six months with me due to its tendency to swap ends if the road was even a bit damp. Great fun on dry surfaces with no curves, but that combo of engine and low gearing was ultra touchy and just too much trouble. Plus it sucked gas. Nearly killed me twice before I swapped it for a much safer motorcycle.
“Every marriage gets one new car do-over”…the whisper at 2 am from an anguished wife with a 6 week old Chrysler Town and Country minivan.
With new twins in the house, moving from an Accord to the minivan seemed like a sensible thing…but in reality…not so much. Too big, boring, and cumbersome.
Sold it for $500 more than we paid for it and grabbed the Volvo V70 R we really wanted. The Volvo was the correct size, beautiful interior (lots of places for Cheerios to hide) and wicked fast. That Volvo was with us for 20 years before selling to a cousin (who is still finding Cheerios tucked into seat cushions).
1976 Datsun (yup) B210, which I bought from a coworker during a difficult financial time in 1988. I paid $125 for it, the body panels were so rusted that they flapped in the breeze. There were holes in the floor and the trunk. The interior was sun-baked and nasty. No radio, no air, even the heat was dodgey. I don’t think the doors locked, or couldn’t be unlocked, or some other third thing.
But… the engine and 4-speed manual transmission were perfect. Started and drove every time, without fail.
After a month or two, I was able to save up enough to pick up a much nicer ’79 Dodge Diplomat. I sold the Datsun to another coworker for $250- it’s the only car I’ve ever made money on.
85 Chrysler Lebaron. Was originally my mom’s car and was being given to me for my first car. It kept dropping half shafts and my parents got rid of it before I turned 16. So… three months? The shortest I’ve owned any car I purchased myself is about a year. The 92 Tempo that you could see the engine through what used to be the drivers side fender and had no floor pans. Bought for $500, sold for $500.
If we mention cars I intended to keep, that title goes to the 2019 Civic, but I think most readers already know what happened to that.
3 days before I wrecked it. My parents gave me their 84 Plymouth Champ twin stick sometime in the early 90s. They said it needed tires but I thought it was more important to install a decent stereo. First day I drove it to work I hydroplaned off the highway into the grassy median and rolled it 3 times. Still pissed I wrecked that car but, fortunately, came out of it without a scratch thanks to seat belts.
1995 Cherokee XJ – bought it just last year around my birthday in October. Stolen from the street in front of my house about 6 months later. I had just started getting her in ship-shape and appreciating her charm and character.
About 3 months on one of the XJ’s I owned over the years. I bought it on a whim because I didn’t feel like taking the bus back to Houston from Dallas (oh Megabus, you fell so far so fast) and found a running, driving 4.0 5spd 2wd for $500. I was looking for a new off road project anyway. Made it home no problem. Starting digging into some of the issues with it and most were not normal XJ issues- they were things like the steering column had been replaced and now the key didn’t work on the doors so you could never lock it. Tying to get everything re-keyed was going to cost more than the car did. And I still had to 4wd swap it to do what I wanted. I cleaned it up and fixed a handful of things and flipped it for a break even. Was very up front with the problems but a running/driving sub $1k car in 2014 was an easy sell.
Earlier this year I located and purchased a $2,000 1994 Buick Park Avenue for some renters currently going through “a lot”. Since they were borrowing their parents’ car and didn’t have any insurance of their own, I actually had to buy the car outright in order to get it back to my place. Then I left it in the driveway, went to the court house for tags and a title transfer, and told them what was going on. They transferred the title, but didn’t issue any plates for it.
That night the renters came by, now with insurance in place, and picked up the car with a fresh title for them to take to the court house and Bill of Sale showing they paid nothing for the car (I had already paid the $150 sales tax on the $2,000 – no need for that to happen twice). Total time of my ownership was roughly four hours.
Cheating!
98 SVT Contour. Early build, number 114. On paper it was a dream car- original owner, 120k, every maintenance record and a journal of fillups since new. No rust, all original paint and parts, miny interior. The problems? Ac didnt work and needed tires. Easy!
Also the only time i trusted somebody else to look over a car.
Both front coil springs were sheared off. Rear suspension collapsed. Rear brakes inop. Water leak inside somewhere. And I was midway through my degree and needed a daily NOW.
I owned it from November through March or April the next year. It sat in storage for all of it, i drove my Mustang and then inherited my sisters Sable.
Put on some decent tires and sold it for a small loss. Lesson learned.
A woman called and told me she and her son wanted it for his first car. I turned her away, up front with the issues. Wish the previous owner had done that with me.
Alfa 156 2.0 twin spark. 6 weeks because Alfa! Spirited driving on the snake pass between Manc and Sheff at 6am. Got to work and it had blown the bottom end. Still got me home but a bit rough to say the least. Pity loved that car.
For me there are cars that are short term and if I get out of it quickly, no surprise. Then there are long term cars, one I was expecting to keep long term but didnt.
That car for me is the 2018 Honda Odyssey, went all in on the mini van thing, at the time the Sienna was just too dated, got the Honda which turns out to be a dud. It would warp rotors quick, which were fixed by buying cheap aftermartket rotors. However the one thing that couldnt be fixed was at times, and many times, you step on the gas to go, it wouldnt, it would hesitate, then surge after a half sec, this made for interesting merges into traffic. Got rid of it after 1.5 yrs.
About an hour. I purchased an xc70 from a dealership. I test drove the car for about 30 minutes. It seemed fine. I then started driving it home and the transmission started slipping. It had warmed up. I then drove it back to the dealership. I walked to the salesman’s desk and told him I’m returning the car. He said he couldn’t take it back. Fortunately for me the check I had written for the car was still laying on his desk. I grabbed it an ripped it up. Some words were had and I left. I never signed a title because he didn’t have the title because the bank still had it. This simplified things a good bit. I still warn people about this particular dealership.
I owned a deuce and a half for about three hours. I went to an auction with a friend, caught up with what a cool vehicle it was, and egged on by him managed to win it. Then realization and panic set in when I had no way to move or store it. I ended up finding a collector also at the auction who bought it for what I paid.
I bought a ’75 Trans Am that didn’t run for $300 so I could get the 4-speed and all the ancillary hardware to convert my ’80 Formula from automatic to manual. I traded the posi unit for the labor of the conversion, and took everything else that was part-out-able off of it and sold the hulk about two months later. Years afterward I was still selling parts from that car, best $300 I ever spent.
1994 Ford Exploder XLT. Had it for little less than 11 months. Epically epic heap of shit. From the endlessly irreparable transmission, to the symphony of ticking and pinging from the 4.0 V6. Thankfully, I was #3 in a 4 car chain collision on Staten Island which caused enough damage to total it but not enough to cause injury. Took the insurance check and bought my friends Impreza 2.5RS.
Three weeks for the car that inspired my user name. Two seats, decent cargo capacity, and a five speed made it a great first car for college student me. Two head gaskets (it was bad when I bought it, then failed again 2 weeks later), upper radiator hose, water pump, radiator drain plug (lost all coolant when it was parked over a weekend, had to get towed back to town), and even a new radiator cap, and it still overheated. Traded it in (actually, rolled over my negative equity I figured out later) on an ’86 Tempo 2 dr. A POS, but it served as transportation through college.
I’ll give you two:
As a new shop teacher, making a whooping $441 a week take home, I decided I should commit 25% of that pay to buying a fast car. I picked up a CPO 2004 GTO with 5200 miles on it, in February of 2006. Good thing it was under warranty, because it spent 31 days in and out of the shop for various maladies. It was the epitome of a Friday car. After losing sleep over the piece of shit, I traded it in after 3-1/2 months on a new 2006 GMC Sierra, which I am still daily driving 19-1/2 years later.
My first car was a Triumph Spitfire that I had in my possession for only 10 days before rolling it.
Car: 2002 Acura RSX Type-S
Length: 5 months
Reason: Understeer and youthful inexperience
About a year, Buick Century I bought as a winter beater. Would have kept it longer but my mom was gifted a car and I bought her old Impreza wagon.