How do you and your S.O handle multiple cars?

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Originally Posted by addyguy

How do you handle it? Do you each have 'your' car; and only take that, or do you grab the keys to whatever can get out first? would love to hear how it works out there!


We refer to the three vehicles in my sig as mine, hers and the kids car, but at the end of the day, they've all been bought, registered, insured and maintained by me.

Then again, married, 4 kids, bride is a stay at home mom. What is really mine?

My wife has never driven my truck. She's welcome to, but hasn't. All keys are accessible to the household.
 
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Her car is what she chose, and mine are what I chose. We drive hers a lot because it's far more practical than mine. She hates my BMW because it's not as fast as her Audi and can't reach the pedals of my Merc SUV.
 
We have several two and four wheeled vehicles. She usually chooses to drive one particular vehicle, but she can drive/ ride any of them. I do the same.
 
My wife has the better vehicle due to driving so much per year(24k).

I drive an old starting to be beat 193k 07 MDX as I drive only 6k/year.
 
We have had 2 vehicles most of our married life, and when we have 2, they are "ours", but we each have a primary vehicle we drive most of the time, so there is a "mine" and "hers".
We have slightly different tastes in vehicles, so when we buy her car, it is something she wants, not necessarily something I like, but I do get some say in it. For my vehicle, I get what I like, and she gets a say as well.
Right now I have truck, she does not like driving it, and has only driven it once in the 6 years we have had it.
I drive "her" vehicle all the time, we take it when we go places together (she does not like to drive, I do), I also drive it alone occasionally (running errands, getting gas, etc).
 
I usually drive the Clubman to work,the M235i is my after work car. My wife drives the X1- or the Clubman if she's biking, as it has a roof rack. She doesn't like manuals, so the Club Sport and Wrangler are all mine.
 
Her Regal GS and Malibu LTZ and my 83 Silverado, but on the weekends i'm the driver when we go out.in her cars.
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We have "His" and "Hers", that are really Ours. I typically inherit her vehicle once it is old enough to be potentially unreliable and we get her a new one. This was my Dad's philosophy and I see no reason to change that. No one is likely to harass me while broken down on a country road. I drive them into the ground, so currently rocking an '04 Grand Caravan with 216K.

My summer ride is a 6-speed Challenger that she can drive, but prefers not to. We'll split local family drives in her Exploder, and I do all of the long-distance trip driving.
 
She has her primary driver, the newer Subaru and I have mine, the Accord Hybrid.
She has her stuff in her car while I don't generally carry much stuff, although I do have spare pairs of both clear and dark tinted glasses in the Accord.
If we go somewhere together, we generally take the Accord, to enjoy its superior fuel economy.
In really bad winter weather, the Subaru is the car of choice.
 
I've been married for 15 years and for the first few we could really only afford one nice car and one beater. During those years I drove the beater. I'd rather break down somewhere than her. Now we both have nice cars. I drive the Frontier probably 95% of the time and she is free to drive it when she wants to but she rarely does. The new Subaru is hers but she does swap me vehicles once in awhile. The Frontier only has 38,000 miles on it and the Subaru has less than 800 miles on it so I guess they are both new in my book.
 
We are "down" to 3 cars, well, I guess I maintain 5 as two of our kids still come to me for "Dad's Garage"

We have the 2017 Rav4 - Hers, the 2010 Mazda3 - Mine and the 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis - Spare

She drive the MGM today to work to get cheaper gas in MO and to drop off the free lawn mower I set up for her recently divorced college roommate.

She doesn't drive it often, but when a car is in the shop, we use the MGM as our personal loaner. Or when we have a boatload of people to carry around.
 
3 cars, 2 drivers. His and hers Camry's, truck is supposed to be "ours" but I drive it the most. But she'll drive it when she needs it. She doesn't like my Camry but has taken it when she didn't want to drive the truck and I was working on her car (neither of us drive the truck unless if we need to).

I think she keeps her copy of the truck key separate from her car key (the car key has house key too). Me, I have my set of vehicle keys, one key for each vehicle. I also keep a set of house keys on a separate carabiner and on that set I keep a spare to "my" vehicles (Camry and truck). Just in case.

Luckily our driveways have always been such that we don't have to do musical cars to get whichever one we want.

My son is less than 2 years out from driving; we'll get something at that time I suspect so as to stay N+1. When the daughter starts driving though we might just have to stay at N as that will be too many for me to take care of! [Plus I suspect she'll wind up in some college where a vehicle would be a pain to have.]
 
Originally Posted by mazdamonky
In my case, we are not married at this time and we each have our own vehicle we purchased with our own money. We tend to drive the other vehicles when needed. For instance, I refuse to let the four year old in my vehicles because she makes a mess and has no respect for the interior of my cars or backs of my seats. Sometimes, she takes one of my vehicles because I need to be responsible for moving the kid around through the day.

Otherwise, my car, my financial responsibility, her car her financial responsibility and she refuses to drive my "fun" cars or either of the more normal ones more than just to and from work.

This is my situation as well. My girlfriend and I have been together for about 15 years and we each have our own vehicles that we each paid for separately. We occasionally drive each other's vehicles but we ask each other. I don't let her son drive any of mine since he tears up everything he drives. His truck is also a pig pen.

My ex-wife and I also had our separate vehicles that we each picked out and we rarely drove each other's vehicle other than on vacations.
 
We had the Colorado (mine), and the Captiva (hers), that I got to fuel and maintain.

10 weeks ago they moved out, with her car...can shift a lot of cats and furniture in a Captiva.

8 weeks ago, I head that my daughter had her learners permit (my bicket list down the toilet), and that they had bought a car (VW TDi with DCT), which she denied...until I saw her driving it two weeks ago this Wed, and the gig was up.

Next day, I find tha Captiva dumped in the back lane, with the keys in the mailbox.

Now I've got to manage two cars.....
 
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Sounds stupid but we never really drive each others car because it involves moving the seat and mirrors. Then you get back to your regular car and have to get re settled. She has her car and I have 2 cars and a truck. I maintain them all so that is usually when I drive hers, when it needs something.
 
I drive my Camry, she drives her Versa. We both drive the truck as needed, for Home Depot runs or to go get hay or animal feed. The XTerra pretty much only gets used for off-roading and camping trips, I drive it most of the time but she does occasionally. The Mustang spends most of its time in the garage.

"She" might be getting a Firebird at some point, then we'll see what happens.

We live on 1.4 acres, so all vehicles are accessible at all times, otherwise we wouldn't have so many and we'd probably take whatever was easiest to get out of the driveway.
 
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My wife has her car that she picked out and bought with our money. I have my car that I picked out and bought with our money.

She drives her car exclusively and I drive my car almost exclusively. She has driven my car a few times when it was necessary.
 
I have an 09 Suburban. My wife has an 09 Kia Sorento. She chose the Kia. I tried to get her an Acadia.

Anyway, I keep my truck clean and presentable. Her car looks like a family of five lives in it. My wife is also one of those people who will drive a car until it stops moving. Makes a funny noise? Turn up the radio. Down on power? Press on the gas harder.

I don't like her driving my truck. She can't back it up and when she drives it in the winter, she always wrecks the front bumper cover hitting frozen snow. I've probably swapped seven of them. Here's the fun part... I try to drive her car from time to time to make sure it's ok but she doesn't like me in it because it's such a mess. But if something happens to her car, she thinks nothing of taking mine.
I stop her constantly from borrowing my truck to deliver chairs from the store she works to another location. I ask her what if we didn't have a Suburban? How will Barnes and Noble get the chairs moved?? Not MY problem.

I want to buy her a new car before winter as hers needs timing chain rubbing blocks. I want to keep the Kia, repair it so it runs mint and have it as a spare. Where we live and the distance to our jobs, we operate on a shoestring with two cars.
BTW, I don't neglect my wife's car. It drives me insane that it needs that work but she refuses to let me do it.
 
His and hers. Mine has my sunglasses, golf clubs and my junk in the trunk. Extra clothes, hoodies, battery jumper, tools, blanket, etc. Wife's has her extra sneakers, exercise clothes, fancy grocery shopping bags. Wife is neat freak and her Rav4 looks new inside. When we first met, she would refer to my jeep as the Let's Make A Deal car because I had such a large collection of random things in it.
 
My wife is welcome to drive any of "my" cars anytime she wants. She doesn't like to drive anything but her car though, and she hates when her car is down for repairs and she has to drive one of mine. Today is one of those days: her car is at the shop getting new tires and an alignment, so she drove my truck to work. She doesn't care if I drive her car somewhere. If we're all going somewhere as a family, we'll take either her car or the van, as those are the most family-friendly cars and they have the kid seats in them. Either way, I'm usually the one who drives. Being able to get out of the driveway isn't a concern. We have enough parking space that we can park all of the cars without any of them being blocked in.
 
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