[The_Mad_Hatter]

I had a 2019 Verna for about 14 months, preceded by a 2016 Verna that had a terrible 4-speed automatic. Sold it because there’s just too little space. The wealth of features just can’t compensate for the lack of space. At 6’2” it’s impossible for anyone to sit behind me.

I used it mainly as a city car. I have a Superb for longer distances. Also, I was tired of owning essentially the same model car - starting from a 2005 Accent (the Verna is the Accent in other markets) - for 15 years. Ended up replacing it with a New Civic. Thought of some SUVs, but I’m just not an SUV guy.

[urban legend]

The shortest I ve owned a car was my pre owned shaman approved A class petrol. It was always my dream to own a merc sometime and i got a good sparingly used car so I went for it. I sold it after 11 months, mainly because it was hardly being used daily( narrow roads, huge turning radius,too much risk of someone scratching it if parked unattended) and the stiff and bumpy suspension would cause me neck pains.
I replaced it with a honda jazz for daily use and also got a low mileage gen 1 swift petrol for sunday morning drives (which has undergone a full paint job and is now going for stage 1 performance mods.)

[Sounak04]

My Grand i10 diesel was owned by me for roughly 10 months before being sold at almost the same price at which it was purchased.
The grand i10 was my first car which i bought from my own money. Since it was the very first car, i bought it very hurriedly. I bought the Grand i10 Sportz (O) on May 22nd 2017. Since it was not the top variant, it lacked ABS and a rear wiper. Also the engine, though refined, used to loose steam after crossing 3k rpm. Also, the most crucial reason was that my office got shifted to powai and i stay in Kharghar, so the daily travel of 70 kms during the traffic hours, was killing my left leg.
Thus, i sold off the Grand i10 on 12th March, 2018 and bought the Maruti Dzire ZDI AMT.
I have to admit there are still times when i miss the Grand i10 for its interior quality. It was leaps and bounds ahead of Dzire even though it costed less.
My Dzire has completed 41k kms in last 2 years and i should be exchanging it next year probably for a Premium Sedan or a SUV.

[royalbeat]

We usually own cars for a long time 8-10 years. The only exception has been an Indica we bought in 2002/03. We let it go within two years. Build quality was horrible and it was falling apart too quickly for anybody's liking. Those 'horrible build quality' years definitely cost Tata immensely in brand value so much so that we were in the market looking for a ~20-25 lacs SUV and didn't even consider Harrier and Hexa. This, despite hearing great things about Hexa.
Another car I have been living with but really want to let go is our 6 years old Brio. Overall it is a very practical car for Mumbai and I like its small size. But I hate its paint quality, interiors and pick-up.

[HornNotOkPlease]

The shortest i have owned a car was a pre-owned Ford Figo for a DAY , the day i got it home i realized the ODO was tampered as the previous owner has listed the car for sale in one portal with an ODO reading of 55145 and when i bought the car it had an ODO reading of 33130. The dealer admitted to the tampering and took back the car. I had to do away with 5K as a loss.

[TSIboy]

My shortest stint was with my ‘15 Innova. Used it for ~9 months and had put only 8000kms on the odo when a friend offered his Fortuner at a price I couldn’t refuse. His car was also delivered on the same day, meticulously looked after & only done similar kms as mine. Sold my Innova and bought it in a heartbeat!

Got lucky with selling my Innova too... found a buyer almost immediately & he paid me almost what I had bought the car for. I lost a ‘grand total’ of 8000rs in depreciation. If only every car held value like an innova!

[advenk999]

I've retained my first car for 7 years. Gave me the greatest returns in terms of reliability, performance and efficiency. It was a Maruti Swift Vxi 2012. Sold it in 2019 and exchanged the same for a Zxi+ AMT and retained over 60% on resale. I plan to keep it for another 5 years or so.

My dad on the other hand had an EcoSport S Ecoboost for 1 year. 14 months with a solid 48000kms on the odo with his cross country driving and sold it off for a good deal in exchange of the Seltos DCT. The Bridgestone tyres 17" were a pain with weak sidewalls on the Eco boost and the heavy clutch along with other minor yet constant niggles made him part ways with it. It was one stonker of a car though.

[Utsav3010]

Way back in 2016, we were looking for a no nonsense Diesel AT, since the running had substantially increased and well, automatics were slowly becoming popular.

Alas, my father stumbled upon a WagonR AMT and immediately purchased it, without consulting me or my mother. My mother was so upset that she did not even accompany us on the delivery day.

The decision made no sense, we wanted a bigger diesel vehicle than the Petrol i20 that was sitting at home, and he brought home a car that was a full size smaller than what we needed, was a Petrol, and had an AMT gearbox.

Within the next four months, my father had totally given up on that cute hatch, and we ended up purchasing a Ciaz Diesel MT, by the end of the year. To date, my father doesn't like automatics, and this is all because of the horrible AMT experience he had. Surely, he has not TDed a few DCT's and is slowly understanding that AMT was a poor choice.

The ownership period was four months, and it was so bad that we don't have a single photo of that car!

[KANNURAN]

My shortest ownership was a painful but educative 3 (THREE) Month span that I had a Volkswagen Vento traumatize me for.

It was a sequence of mis-happenings, starting with a bad accident that totalled my Polo. I got back to using my old Swift VDi, but lacking Airbags and ABS and given our 3-4 Thousand Kilometres per month norm, I was desperate for a “safe” car. My prior experience with the rock-solid Polo had me gravitating toward VAG cars.
Over a weekend, and on a routine errand, I fell for a good-looking Vento; 2011 Model, 95K on the odo.


“Vinaasha Kaaley Vipareeta Buddhi”, I disregarded all the used car purchase lessons from Team-BHP and life. A basic scan revealed 3 faults: Turbo-boost pressure, MAF sensor and Left Side ABS sensor. I thought a budget of 25K would suffice to fix the car and sealed the deal forthright.
I started with the customary vitamins and nutrients from Amazon and thought I had a steed I could trust.


Over the next 2 months, I replaced 2 injectors (with refurbished ones), an actuator, changed the MAF sensor and the ABS sensor, but the gremlins would crop up unfailingly. The dashboard wore a perineal “Tokyo by Night” look with multiple warning indicators. Exhaust was getting to a darker shade with every passing day and the exhaust blow-by (which I discovered much later) was a smoking chimney


I spent over 70K rupees over the course of 2.5 months. The car used to return striking fuel economy, but the dark exhaust and the limp mode acceleration discouraged further surgery. I hate to leave a car uncared and had I a reliable FNG, I would have done more, but I simply lost my heart for it. I purchased it on 6th June and sold it on 2nd Sept, as a part exchange deal for a Skoda Rapid Diesel.
Looking back at the episode leaves me sad, not as much for the approx. 2 Lakhs I lost, as for the extreme abuse such a solidly built car may have earlier suffered, and for my inability to nurse it back to health.

[architect_santo]

I bought a used Zen (1999 model) at 2012, it had run about 22,000 km by the the 1st owner, I used it for a year; and sold it off when I got married as my wife already had a Honda Brio, couldn't park 2 cars at the apartment, so let go the Jelly bean Zen. Sold it for the same price I bought!

Brio was good, but our running increased (for work) so had to sell it off, it was less than 2 years old when we sold it. Then bought Honda Amaze Diesel at 2013, my wife is using it till now, run 92,000km, have no idea of letting it go, at least for the next 5 years.

Then I went to Saudi Arabia at 2014, bought a used Honda Civic Automatic (2007 model) used it for 2 years, loved the car; sold it when I came to India, at the end of my assignment. Bought a S-Cross at 2017 been driving it till now. However I do regret not buying an automatic, otherwise a good car, no plans to sell it any soon.

[starke]

The shortest one stay for me was a Honda City Type 1 - 2001 model which lasted for 3 months.

In my 20s, I got some earning from a small project I did and on my way back after getting my paycheck, saw a silver Honda City - Type 1 (2001) lying near the road with a 'For Sale' tag on it. That's where the horror film begins.

Everyone told me not to buy including my family and my mechanic (who was a Maruti lover by the way, so I didn't listen) considering the low resale value and Honda badging ( high maintenance). But I trusted the superb condition of its engine side and bought it.

Well, the engine did remarkably great, what went wrong was with everything else, it took everything from me
+A 3rd party sunroof - leaking in the rain
+Headlights - Dances when I turn on the wiper and turns of if I put it to Dim mode
+powerwindows - Except the rear two sides, from both sides dead
+NVH - Except horn, everything else had high definition screeching!
+Fuel tank started leaking


And the list goes on and on, I had to sell it at 1/3rd cost from what I bought.
Still, a nightmare when I think about that 3 months.

[tweaker]

2014 i20 Diesel. Kept it for 3 years and finally sold it off for a pre-owned Jetta. The i20 just wasn't fun enough to drive and the brakes used to lock up randomly. Add to that the service bills were as much as the Jetta and the whole deal just didn't click.

[turbowhistle]

Pre-owned 2009 Getz 1.3, owned it for 15-16 months and covered 25,000 odd kilometres in it. I learned driving in it and have very fond memories of driving to lonavala and around Mumbai with my girlfriend (now wife ). We sold the car as we already got an i20 soon after that and Getz use had gone down considerably. Bought it for 1.5L and sold for 1.2L so didn’t lose much money into it.

Also Bought the pre-owned and abused Duster in August 2017 and sold it in December 2018 as I was leaving India for good. Covered almost 50000 km in those 14-15 months and it was the most loved as well as most hated car in our garage. It was bought as i20 was turning out very expensive for my daily office runs (100 km to and fro and single digit mileage on the petrol i20)
Spent a good amount fixing it up and incurred a huge loss when I sold the Duster.

I just got a Mini Cooper S 3 months back and planning to keep it for 2 years or less before moving to a 3/5 series.

[Torque250]

Bought Honda city SV MT diesel on 2014 may.
6 years since then and its still going strong. I have completed 1,50,000kms till date. No niggles reported. Swapped tyres from 175/60 to 195/60 after one year into the ownership. It was still on stock clutch and suspension. Touch wood.
Planning to keep it for 2 more years.

[Pashin]

The shortest was an Indica Vista Turbo. Good car at the time with the Fiat diesel and awesome fuel efficiency. However the clutch got heavy in 3 months and the service center just could not fix it. Gave her away in 4 months