Within the next week I will have had my Coupe for 5 years, and last Monday I completed my 100000th mile in it. I have never had a car for so long (not as my main car which has been used almost daily anyway) so there must be something good about it! Actually, after all this time I still love it and get excited about owning it.

The five years have in many ways been pretty uneventful in terms of ownership. Before I bought the car I asked on here about peoples views of buying a car with only 34k miles but 7 owners and many said to walk away - I'm glad I didn't. I guess if I get round to selling it 8 owners won't be so much of a problem with the added age and mileage. The running costs have been pretty reasonable, I haven't added everything up but the big costs have been two replacement cambelts, two sets of front and one set of rear discs and two exhaust systems (had I known I would keep it so long I would have bought a stainless one first time). Otherwise I had to have some brake pipes replaced just before Christmas and the front flexis went a couple of years ago. Overall fuel consumption has averaged 26.9 mpg and oil use has never been excessive.

The clutch has just started slipping and the cambelt is due a change shortly so it is booked in at PowerItalia for both jobs being done which hopefully will give the car at least one more year of useful life.

Much as I love it I do regularly think about what to replace it with but have not come up with the right solution and funds to make the change so am happy to keep the car for the foreseeable future.

Overall - what a great car, and a bit of a performance bargain.

Good post Andy.Did you find the reason why so many owners?

I always intended to write to the DVLA and get the full history of ownership but never got round to it - I still might one day. From the limited amount of paperwork I got (there wasn't a full service history either) it looked like it was owned by at least two people from the same family so that could account for some of the short term ownership which it must have had.

5 years ownership, of which you've been on this forum three of them and you've only made 228 posts - my guess is that the car os close to standard, otherwise you'd have lots of posts in the modding section and even more in Tech Probs!

Anyway, I know what you mean - I've had mine five and a half years now - more than twice as longest I've ever had a car before. Done nearly 130,000 in that time, on top of the 80,000 it had done it its first 5 years of its life

They just get under your skin, don't they?

Actually, if you look at my profile I am member number 11 on this forum - I had a question to ask when the previous forum went AWOL and was very keen to get back on here so registered as soon as this forum went live. I had been a member of the previous forum for a while before purchasing my car.

It is basically standard, as I rely on the car it is pretty important that it is reliable so I have kept it that way, plus I don't seem to have had much spare time to do anything beyond basic servicing etc. As I said I haven't had many problems with it so haven't had to post much, but do regularly visit tech problems and general maintenance to know what to do if anything isn't right!

<cough> fourteen years...

Keep at it!

I know I am not setting any records, but thought it a couple of a milestones, and quite a co-incidence that it was so close between the two. Having said that, last year when it ticked around to 120k miles I looked to see when it had gone on to 100k and it was, to the day, exactly one year earlier.

Andy, it was encouragement, not criticism!

I *love* to see people who've taken the plunge and seen the sense of hanging on to these cars and *using* them.

Neil

No criticism taken. As good as my car is, I can't see it lasting another 9 years to enable me to match your current ownership period! Mind you, at the rate I have been clocking up miles that would only be about 320k in total so ought to be possible but probably not economically viable unless Coupe values change somewhat.