Hello all, I've always wondered the factors that dealer take into consideration for trade in values. And one of them is number of previous owners.

Lets say Owner A has an e60 titled under his/her name. He/She transfers ownership to Owner B.
Owner B heads into a dealership looking to trade in the e60 months later.

Will trade in value be affected because of history of another owner? :huh:

In the UK, absolutely "yes".

Not only does the car become 3rd hand rather than 2nd hand, but people will ask "what's wrong with the car, why does nobody want to keep it?"

Yes ,
if as you suggests ,the 2nd owner only waits a few months before trading on,that would send alarm bells ringing in future buyers.

It's all about how long you keep the car. If the 2nd owner keeps the car for much longer eg 2 years before selling then the effect on prices will be small.


Interestingly as an aside, my friend recently bought an Audi A6 which was 18 months old. However a look into how long the last owner had the car showed that they had sold the car to Audi after 6 months of ownership and having done a whopping 18,000 miles.

It seems that Audi weren't happy with selling the car straight away and kept it in storage till a time when the mileage looked attractive compared to it's age.

depends on if the dealer is trying to resell the car to the public (then yes it probably matters), or if the dealer will supply the car to the auction houses (then no it probably doesn't)

As an ex car dealer i cant see it mattering.

There is usually a genuine enough reason for this, which if it was a concern the salesmand could identify. Its also easy covered off by using any one of these feasible reasons...

'They found the car was too big for them'
'They bought an estate car'
'The owner was promoted and got a company car'
'Needed a jeep instead because of where they were moving to'
'Im not sure why the car was traded in, but as they bought another BMW they must be happy with the brand'
Or the converse if they bought a different brand 'They had always driven Mercedes and couldnt warm to a BMW'
'A change of job meant they needed a diesel'
'They traded it in for two smaller cars'

Car dealers will never use the term 2nd hand, 3rd hand, 4th hand. Once a car is not new, its used.

Unless the car has had a large amount of owners in a short timeframe, such as say, 7 in a couple of years, then there wont be an issue. A quick jump of owner can be explained away.