Vanity plates question

Soldato
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Why can't you just choose what you want the plate to say? It seems like there are only various combos that look like random letters and numbers anyway. Or am I looking in the wrong place?
 
What? Are you US based or something?

No that's what I mean. In the US you just say what you want the plate to say and it's either taken or not. All the sites I've tried over here try to force you to use the current style of letter letter number number etc.
 
Were not in the US, we don't have vanity plates

We have personal registrations, which still need to comply with the existing format of standard registrations.
 
Were not in the US, we don't have vanity plates

We have personal registrations, which still need to comply with the existing format of standard registrations.

Yeah exactly. Why? That's rubbish. And how can Alan sugar have ams1
 
You can't just have any layout of letters and numbers, it needs to be of an existing format. AFAIK there are 3 styles:
1 - present/modern style: AB16 ABC (2 letters, then 2 numbers to signify the year, then 3 letters)
2 - prefix style: A1 ABC (1 letter, 1 to 3 numbers, then 3 letters)
3 - Northern Irish style: ABC 123 (3 letters then 3 numbers, but I'm not sure if those are just the plates available, or if that's the rule).

sure, there are other styles of plates out there, but they're ancient ones that can't be "bought new" - you'll have to buy it off someone else, and I doubt a quirky old style plate will be cheap.

Can look through examples and available plates here: http://dvlaregistrations.direct.gov.uk/

Note, not all letters are available, e.g. there's no I or Q.

And, afaik, the only other rule is (apart from nothing rude), you can't have a plate showing a year newer than your car. So, if your car is registered in 2014 then a 15, 65 and 16 plate is out.
 
Irish is 3 letters followed by 4 numbers. Iirc the letters need to include a z or i.
You can also have AAA then one two or three numbers followed by a single letter.
Steve Parrish still has PEN 1S i think.
Basically if the layout you want existed as a format in the past you can have a plate in said format. A1, AA1, AAA1 and so on.
 
That's weak. Why do we do it that way? Surely the plate just identifies the car and registered owner?

No, our registration plate system does more than that. It identifies the age of the car, and also where it was first registered. It's been this way for near enough 50 years, so don't expect it to change any time soon!
 
You can't just have any layout of letters and numbers, it needs to be of an existing format. AFAIK there are 3 styles:
1 - present/modern style: AB16 ABC (2 letters, then 2 numbers to signify the year, then 3 letters)
2 - prefix style: A1 ABC (1 letter, 1 to 3 numbers, then 3 letters)
3 - Northern Irish style: ABC 123 (3 letters then 3 numbers, but I'm not sure if those are just the plates available, or if that's the rule).

sure, there are other styles of plates out there, but they're ancient ones that can't be "bought new" - you'll have to buy it off someone else, and I doubt a quirky old style plate will be cheap.

Can look through examples and available plates here: http://dvlaregistrations.direct.gov.uk/

Note, not all letters are available, e.g. there's no I or Q.

And, afaik, the only other rule is (apart from nothing rude), you can't have a plate showing a year newer than your car. So, if your car is registered in 2014 then a 15, 65 and 16 plate is out.

Some combinations of letters are also considered "exclusive" to some areas, and so aren't allowed.

I never knew this until I was trying to get X52 MAN as a plate. Apparently MAN is reserved for registrations from the IoM, so I couldn't get it here on the mainland.
 
Note, not all letters are available, e.g. there's no I or Q

I is available on Irish plates but only as the last character in the 3 letter part of the format.
Q stands for questionable. As this country operates a system whereby the age of the vehicle is reflected in its registration, a Q is given if the age of the vehicle cannot be determined. It's already been pointed out that you can't have a plate indicating the car is newer than it actually is. You see them on some US imports, plant machinery and kit cars built without a single major donor.
 
No, our registration plate system does more than that. It identifies the age of the car, and also where it was first registered. It's been this way for near enough 50 years, so don't expect it to change any time soon!

Haha, no I don't expect it will. In the states the year and model of the car are linked to the reg so I've always wondered why we had it on the plate. I can't imagine buying a car without knowing enough to spot that it wasn't the year that it was advertised as. Seems like they've missed a trick as vanity plates could be a good source of revenue

It's just a number plate, why are you getting so worked up about it? Makes no difference to the performance or styling of the car.

Not worked up as such, just had some money to burn and thought it would be a fun addition to the car, and then realised it wasn't that simple.
 
I is available on Irish plates but only as the last character in the 3 letter part of the format.
Q stands for questionable. As this country operates a system whereby the age of the vehicle is reflected in its registration, a Q is given if the age of the vehicle cannot be determined. It's already been pointed out that you can't have a plate indicating the car is newer than it actually is. You see them on some US imports, plant machinery and kit cars built without a single major donor.

Pretty sure I've seen a few Irish plates that say OIL on them up in Aberdeen?
 
No, our registration plate system does more than that. It identifies the age of the car, and also where it was first registered. It's been this way for near enough 50 years, so don't expect it to change any time soon!


I don't see why there's so many guidelines it seems pretty pointless. The DVLA should already know the details of the car, when it was first registered etc... etc... so why should it matter what letters and numbers you have?

It's a very dated system where it's seen as "well it's been like that forever so we're not changing it".

I'm not that bothered about a private plate, but it seems an unnecessarily strict system for no apparent reason.
 
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