43 owners and still going strong – Honda Civic’s astonishing tally

MOST of us tend to buy a car with one, two, maybe three previous owners – at the most.

After that our instincts, and the experts, tell us we should be ultra cautious.

But someone out there is driving a Carlow-registered Honda Civic that’s still going strong after 43 owners – yes 43 owners.

The extraordinary number was discovered during a special analysis of overall car ownership by prestigious vehicle history expert Cartell.ie.

It also found that: one car had 36 owners; two have 35; and eight each have 24 and 25 names respectively in the Vehicle Registration Document (log book).

The Cartell.ie study, the only one of its kind recently published, also found that there are 17,166 cars with 10 or more owners. It reports that the majority of cars are on their first, second or third owners.

The average age of vehicles is 8.6 years while the time between ownership changes is 3.39 years.

Cartell’s Jeff Aherne says that a buyer should use this rule of thumb: you should pay less for a car that has fewer than three years between changes and more than three owners.

Mr Aherne says: “Obviously counting the number of previous owners and the dates of sale are a very important part of the history of a vehicle. The higher the number of owners the more important a car history check becomes. If the car has a higher number of owners, and, if it changed hands recently, then you have to question whether the vehicle has mechanical issues.”