[carthick1000]

I think it is a very good idea.

- If you 3 can begin a small rental company as partners and buy the car in company's name, most of your insurance and registration issues should be covered. You will pay a bit more premium, but your (rental) company will be the ownership entity and you all 3 hold equal shares when sold
- None of you incur expensive ownership costs of a single owner
- Less emissions to the environment in making the vehicle with only 1 needed instead of 3
- You can set an example to others
- You have one additional common topic to drool about in your chats
- You can schedule simply with a calendar based tool for booking the vehicle, using it and returning it
- You can follow rental company style ie. to bring back full tank. Additional to the full tank return, the person bringing in clean/washed, should check maintenance status etc. at that point in time and then service the car if needed.
- Flexibility in your schedules ie when one of you is busy the others can plan to take the vehicle for any maintenance or cleaning
- Also make sure you have a place to park in all your houses/garage

In the Netherlands where I live, more people are preferring to choose shared car services instead of owning one as the ownership costs are very high here. Also households with 2 or more cars with the 2nd/3rd car which is less used tend to benefit from selling their extra car and using car sharing services. I am part of our village sustainability club where we gathered 10 members, who are interested in car sharing and formed a EV hub where 1 BMW i3 is available for people to reserve and use.

If ever, you guys make this small project of yours succesful, we are all ears in this club. Do dedicate a thread to the experience.

[PrasannaDhana]

Just quoting a few popular phrases here :

Too many cooks spoil the broth

Your car is like your woman, off-limits to anyone but you

I have a strict policy, I DONT involve transactions with my friends and relatives. Money has the power to break relationships, quite easily and quickly.

You can rather buy 3 thars and ogle at it in your individual garage even if you don't have the time to drive it, rather than wait for your turn to drive a thar that would feel like a Zoomcar/rental car and never would feel like your own. The best part of car ownership is the personal connect you have with that machine. If you don't get that, I don't know what's the point in even spending money on it, even if it's just 1/3rd of the total cost.

[dpaul]

It's a bad idea from the beginning itself. If the vehicle is registered in only one person's name or one company's name, just imagine the hassle that person will have to face if any unforseen situation arises. God forbid that something like that happens, but if the car is involved in any hit and run scenario and the registered person is not driving, then who will face the charge?

[nikhilarni]

Voted No!

It's just too much of a hassle to get into. After reading all the conditions posted by fellow T-Bhpians, my two cent is, it'll probably ruin the friendship.

I must say, folks around have given this a deep thought and have come up with some fantastic observations and clauses. Given that its between friends ( who I am assuming are pretty well off ), I would not recommend getting into this sort of an arrangement.

On a side note, some engineering batch-mates ( drop outs ) had come up with a novel scheme to make money. They would advertise about my college and get unsuspecting parents to admit their kids in the college I studied and made a commission out of it. Those guys had bought a car jointly and things to show the parents the college. Back then ( 2002 timeframe ), they had bought a Lancer and all. They sure made some good money. When those guys had a spat, things got very bitter and ugly. That's when we got to know what they were upto

[BUXX]

There was an episode in Crime Patrol on this.

Buyers Beware !! (pun fully intended)

[SN88]

Voted NO.

Legend has it that this was one of the reasons for Korea to split North and South

[reppy]

Makes no sense to me. Why not just rent instead when needed?

Also completely depends on the understanding and compromise quotient between the people involved in the shared purchase. Maybe have a lucky draw during conflicts?

[mh09ad5578]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Never share a car, never share a kitchen, never lend your golf clubs and never lend your books.

We friends had made a similar plan to buy a thar almost 10 years back, idea was to keep the vehicle for 4 months each with each guy. My dad vetoed the idea by a simple saying in Marathi " one wife and three husband's will never work"

[rhsakarp]

Not a car, had tried this with a bike, few years ago.
Bought a Ninja 250, shared with 2 friends (3 of us in total).

Few rules we had set up

1. Each of us would keep the bike for a month
2. All service costs would be shared
3. shared insurance premiums etc.
4. take and return with full tank of fuel

All was great, we were each enjoying the bike, something we could not have afforded individually, we did many rides, totally worth it and the idea to share was working great !

Until, one of us met with a minor crash. Luckily, rider was unscathed, bike was pretty damaged.

Got it fixed, shared the costs (over and above the insurance).

Somehow, things were never the same after this...2 of us always held the one guy responsible for crashing the bike, the bike never felt the same (psychological maybe ?), we just lost the whole joy we had earlier.

After a few months, one of us bought out the other two (who were also eager to sell out) and that was the end of it.

[Asif 6959]

My two dear & near friends had purchased a Royal Enfield Bullet couple of years back and shared the cost equally. One of them is planning to sell it off and the other is not ready to.

Its to your own understanding with your friends how you would track & utilize the car. If everyone is true and understanding then it makes sense, or else a big no.

Am a believer that whenever there is a money factor involved - conflicts will occur.

IMO since its a second car that you all want why don't you consider rentals as an option instead of having the pain of investment & maintenance.

[INNOVATOR]

Would propose a completely different approach to achieve the same end result:

1. Buy and register the car on a single person's name as the owner
2. Put together a memorandum for the remainder to rent the car
3. The owner borrows amount to fund the initial purchase from the other 2 - this can be repaid in the form of rental value (not collected)
4. All maintenance and depreciation benefits accrue to the owner of the car

Adv:
- keeps the legal issues clear
- Right Insurance can be bought and will indemnify in case of accidents
- Lots of templates available for self drive cars T&Cs
- Keeps friendship indemnified from the vagaries of a Business Relationship

Cons:
- How to choose the owner and how much will he/she put down

[IshaanIan]

Seeing all the posts against it, obviously I cannot comment from experience since my friend and I are yet to pick up a Teana for our purposes, however I will say this much:

Buying a manual might not be the best idea since different people have different styles of driving, limiting it to an automatic car might be safest bet. Not to mention transmission failure in an automatic, a big woe for anyone, would be half the cost since it will be split between two people.

Go with someone who you can trust and have been in similar situations with in the past where costs were split without any hassle.

[camitesh]

This thought brings back some memories, though not directly in line with OPs present situation. Back in 2010-11, a very close friend picked up a lovely used Tata Nano in partnership with 2 or 3 other childhood friends/neighbours whom I didn't know. My friend did not know how to drive and he intended to learn driving on this one but he never got around to really drive it often since it was always away with some of the other partners as they never pre agreed on terms. This lasted for a couple of months before everyone were pissed with the guy who drove it most and asked him to buy-in their share and keep the car for himself which he did after some negotiations. Long story short, my friend never really learnt driving and he never had a thought of getting a shared car once again to learn driving.

I was really intrigued with this idea back then and proposed few of my friends to get a shared car (probably a swift or i10) but it didn't work out due to finances and I ended up buying a really cheap Maruti zen in 2013 for approximately the price of a new iPhone around that time. Looking back in time, I'm happy I didn't go the shared car route and possibly avoided myself the hassles.

If the OP does decide to go ahead, all I can say is tread carefully and have the sharing / maintenance agreement written in stone as advised by other members before taking the leap

[Motoringlover]

Keep life simple. Car is too personal. I cant imagine sharing on a regular basis, and its not just the upfront cost, cost of maintaining, changes to life (Job, marriage, movement of cities) makes it complicated.

[anumod]

This is exactly like a partnership and the requirement clearly says that partners may not need the car at the same time. So all partners plan their 6 months in advance, I believe it's a great idea and the maintenance is divided by the miles covered by each friends , it's a great idea. I believe all of you will save a lot and in the mean time enjoy the capabilities of Thar as well. I will give a big thumps up for this idea. ( I work in a company where sharing gives a big push and if you are not using others work for your success, then the rewards will get reflected too of course in a negative way )