Reg plate system - should it change?

pburns

Just picking up from some of the threads on here where peeps seem to be very keen on the benefits of running older cars (and the implication by some that driving a brand new car is stupid).

Do you think a system where the year of the car wasn't so blindingly obvious would be better? Would it prevent the Corolla and Quasquai drivers from being so obsessive about trading the car every 2 years for an identical one? Would it be a positive step environmentally (fewer new cars being manufactured/transported) and economically (despite the income from VRT and the wailing of Bill Cullen it's a huge chunk of money leaving the country)? Also, there may be a certain amount of income raised through personalised plates (proper ones, not the convoluted ones that try to make a '0' look like a 'D' etc.

I'm not too well up on the systems in use in other countries but I know in some juristictions you own a plate and fit it to successive cars you buy. In Britain you can tell the year (except with vanity plates) but the plates are more discreet, not so blindingly obvious to Mr and Mrs Jones of of 682 Jubilee Street. Also, I think they were thinking of moving to a system where the prefixes would change a couple of times a year - you'd have to be a bit of an anorak to keep up.

I reckon the SIMI would oppose any change tooth-and-nail but does anyone think this would be just better all-round?

I think that whilst our system is logical the number of characters that have to be squeezed onto a plate in the more densely populated counties results in regs that are difficult to remember ('Eh it was 06 D ...Guard') and just fugly and naff looking.

I know people will come back with the usual inverted snobbery 'Ohh I'm driving a 98 and anyone buying a new car is an idiot'. What I really asking though is would it be a better system for country as a whole (and more responsible than the current scrappge scheme for example which is mostly for the benefit of SIMI).

af_thefragile

I don't like the way everyone can find out how old your car is just from the number plate.
So I will agree with you.

People see a car with say a 99 number plate and it suddenly becomes inferior to a car with a 00 number plate even when the 99 number plate car might be in a better condition.

And there are also people who buy new cars cuz they think their 06 number plate has become too old and they need a 10 plate to keep up with the times...

I like how it is in the UK and most other countries where you can't say what year model the car is just by looking at its number plate unless you were a complete geek.

Del2005

The UK has the year on their plates, they sort of copied ours. I'd rather know the year of a car I'm buying easily so I can work out if it's legit. No system is perfect but our current one is easy to follow, if they had vanity plates they'd be harder to recall because they won't have any standard format.

L1011

Our system was designed partially for ease of memory in cases of hit and runs, etc. In 1985/6 when it was being designed nobody had the money to change cars very often so that wasn't really a concern!

Letter-heavy systems like the UK's are very hard to remember in full; numbers are easier because most people can remember 7 digit numbers (phone numbers) fine.

edit: I'd also be interested in seeing what NI does when it imminently runs out of allocations on its 1910-era all-ireland system. There were rumours they'd use our system, but wait until the new reduced number of councils came in before generating letter codes. Its not unknown for adjoining countries to share a system.

Atavan-Halen

No, I think it's a very good system and easy to understand. Year - County - Number. Simple

baalthor

I agree with you OP. Our system is the worst one possible. Putting the year AND county on the plates significantly distorts the car sales market.

peasant

baalthor wrote: »

I agree with you OP. Our system is the worst one possible. Putting the year AND county on the plates significantly distorts the car sales market.

It does no such thing ...it simply specifies (quite clearly) year and county of first registration. All that comes after that are people and their strange preconceptions and prejudices.
If their was a different system, people would find other criteria to misinterpret it by

macplaxton

Yes, it should be changed.

Allow transfers. Those with money to burn can contribute to a new gov revenue stream.

Change layout to promote above scheme. Being able to transfer a yy-cc-nnnnn isn't much incentive to spend.

pa990

the uk system is
County-Year-random letters
Ie
BM-52-XYZ
Birmingham, 2002, xyz

They have two registration periods per year.
The first in march and the second in sept.
So, 02 would be march 2002 and 52 is sept 2002.

It is easily followed by anyone in the uk, as all local cars will have the same first two letters, and the next two numbers denote year

slimjimmc

baalthor wrote: »

I agree with you OP. Our system is the worst one possible. Putting the year AND county on the plates significantly distorts the car sales market.

How so? Do you think the British market is similarily significantly distorted by their system (which also show age and area)?

I think our system is great, clear and easy to remember.

bazz26

Personally I don't give a toss about the year on the number plate until you are buying/selling the car when it is used as a reference to valuation.

What I would like to see though is a change in the system were the registered owner has a reg plate that transfers from car to car under their ownership. In other words you get a reg plate from day one and that reg plate stays on the car registered in your name until you transfer ownership to someone else. This works very well in alot of US states.

Carstuck

I like the Irish system. As previously mentioned its clear and simple. I don't see what the point of changing it, it makes no difference what the plate looks like once the car is good.

zilog_jones

pa990 wrote: »

the uk system is
County-Year-random letters
Ie
BM-52-XYZ
Birmingham, 2002, xyz

They have two registration periods per year.
The first in march and the second in sept.
So, 02 would be march 2002 and 52 is sept 2002.

It is easily followed by anyone in the uk, as all local cars will have the same first two letters, and the next two numbers denote year

It's nowhere as easy to follow as you think. It's only the first letter that denotes the region, so in your example Birmingham can be anything from BA to BY. And that's one of the easy ones - e.g. Bristol is WM to WY - if you didn't look that up you wouldn't have a clue that was Bristol. W on its own signifies the whole west of England, which isn't very specific at all. And once you go back before 2001 it's even worse - when I lived in England I knew local reg's for Somerset were YA, YB, YC, or YD (the last two letters in the three letter part of the reg). But this was only for 1965-1996 registrations (1997-2001 are completely different for many regions), and anything else I'd have to look up. It was pretty much the same as the pre-'87 plates here in that respect.

From my experience, people in the UK with no interest in cars don't understand the new year system (unless they are buying a used car) and even less so the area codes. Compare that to here where pretty much anyone who has looked at a car can read the year and county codes on Irish plates.

Most Irish registrations are too long to easily remember. MYOB compares it to phone numbers but you're not using a registration nearly as much as you would a phone number that you have learnt, and you're talking about year, county and 4-7 digits, not just one 5-7 digit number. I remember many old pre-'87 reg's from cars of friends and family, but few from more modern cars.

-Chris-

Remove the year from the plates and attach the plate to the driver rather than the car?
Jesus, can you imagine the number of threads we'd have saying "I really want to buy this car, how do I know if it's really as old/new as the seller says it is?"...

It's a simple system, easy to remember, easy to understand. What's to change?

zilog_jones

-Chris- wrote: »

Jesus, can you imagine the number of threads we'd have saying "I really want to buy this car, how do I know if it's really as old/new as the seller says it is?"...

How do they deal with this in all the countries without year-based registrations? The online registration check sites will probably give this info for free - the DVLA in the UK give Date of Liability, Date of First Registration and Year of Manufacture for free on theirs. Worst case scenario you could just ask to see the VLC or the VIN (date of manufacture can be decoded from this).

bazz26

-Chris- wrote: »

Remove the year from the plates and attach the plate to the driver rather than the car?
Jesus, can you imagine the number of threads we'd have saying "I really want to buy this car, how do I know if it's really as old/new as the seller says it is?"...

It's a simple system, easy to remember, easy to understand. What's to change?

It works well in other countries where a properly thought out system is in place but knowing the Irish lack of foward thinking it would probably be a farse in reality here. Other countries also don't use a Jan1 to Dec31 reg system and they work well too.

spuddy

The Swiss system is excellent. Two letters to identify the canton (county), followed by number. For example ZH for Zurich, GE for Geneve, BE for Berne... The plate is associated with a person, so you keep it for life, providing you don't move canton. It's easy to understand, and ensures that year snobbery isn't an issue.

Proving the age of a car should be very straight forward, from the vechical's documentation.

I would say there are two reasons we have the year on the plates:
1. To boost car sales. People will buy a car for no other reason than to have the latest plate. This helps the government coffers.
2. Because our nearest neighbour, who also drive on the left, put the year on their plates. Used values are heavily influenced by the visibile year. If the UK kept their system, while we ditched ours, it would encourage people to shop next door, even more than now.

BrianD3

Is reg plate snobbery a big deal in ireland? I haven't encountered much of it over the years - the odd "I've got a 10 reg" brag, but very rarely have I come across this.

I think Corolla drivers who trade in every year or two do so because of a fear that their car will explode once it hits a certain age and mileage. Not because they think the neighbours are looking down on their "old reg".

-Chris-

OK, out of curiosity I put together this spreadsheet.

Car sales statistics from here:
http://www.acea.be/index.php/news/news_detail/passenger_cars_2009_registrations_down_16_compared_to_2008

Population data from Wikipedia.


According to this, Switzerland outsells Ireland and the UK. My thoughts would be that this eliminates the argument that the UK and Irish systems promote car sales.*



*I accept that I'm not an economist and other factors such as GDP, quality of life, VRT, BPM, scrappage deals etc. need to be factored in.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

I think that our number plate system is very logical and easy to remember. The problem is one of the celtic ireland attitude where new was seen as superior and new "environmentally" friendly car were imported at great carbon cost.

The race to keep up with the Jones lead to a stigma of having a non dublin reg or a reg of anything but the current year, its time we began to appreciate cars for more than their date of manufacture or county of registration, and begun to realize that running a 1998 v12 5ltr car is more environmentally friendly than manufacturing and importing a new prius . The greens also have to stop penalizing drivers of older cars.

P.C.

Just a quick question to all who are happy with the current reg system:

Would you buy a 13 XY 12345 car?
Either new, or second hand?

-Chris-

Yes

L1011

Most likely *will* as I plan to sell my late 08 car when the warranty runs out!

How does the Swiss system handle fleet cars, multiple cars for a single owner, etc?

Darsad

I have heard that there is moves within the industry by some of the distributors to have have system changed in the hope that any change could even out the years business instead of having the majority of new sales front loaded to the first four months or so of the year.

GTE

I think the current system is a great one that is easy and works. Say, if the guards were looking for a 00 golf the ones who are in the know would know what body style it would be instead of complex arrangements of numbers. Presuming the plates werent switched.

Anyway, thats just some brain fart I thought of there.

My main point is our own system works, works well and the only problem with it isnt even with it, its with the mentality of people who think the year is important. Shallow people who shouldnt be the cause of an overhaul of a system that doesnt need it.

P.C.

MYOB wrote: »

Most likely *will* as I plan to sell my late 08 car when the warranty runs out!

How does the Swiss system handle fleet cars, multiple cars for a single owner, etc?

Fleet cars: The firm buys the cars (say 10), then they 'buy' 10 reg.

When they sell the cars, they can keep the reg for the next car they buy, or 'file it away for use later'. If they own more than 10 cars, they need to buy a new reg for each new (ie. each car over ten) car.

Same thing for a single owner with more than one car - you have more than one reg, which, you can keep, or sell with the car.

My father (who does not live in Ireland) has had the same reg on 4 different cars, and my mother has had the same reg on 3 different cars.

And when it comes to finding out the year when you are buying a car, you just ask to see the registration papers for the car - and you work on year of manufacture, not year of first registeration.

-Chris-

P.C. wrote: »

And when it comes to finding out the year when you are buying a car, you just ask to see the registration papers for the car - and you work on year of manufacture, not year of first registeration.

How does warranty work in this case - I thought the warranty countdown had to go from date of registration rather than date of manufacture as many cars sit in stock for a while before being bought?

I presume the date of registration is still recorded.

Also, what happens if a car was in stock for a year before you bought it. It's not fair for you to buy a new car and own it for three years, but then to get a four year old value for it.

L1011

+1 to that, my car has a 2007 manufacture AND import date but I bought it in the last quarter of 2008. Its not a 2007 car by reg or usage history...

P.C.

-Chris- wrote: »

How does warranty work in this case - I thought the warranty countdown had to go from date of registration rather than date of manufacture as many cars sit in stock for a while before being bought?

I presume the date of registration is still recorded.

Also, what happens if a car was in stock for a year before you bought it. It's not fair for you to buy a new car and own it for three years, but then to get a four year old value for it.

Warranty starts from date of registration, and yes, it is recorded.

It is the responsibility of the buyer to negotiate a discount for a car that has been 'in stock' for a year.

If they don't, they will get the value of a four year old car, which they have only owned for three years.

But, there are tricks that you learn
- what colours do you have in stock? Damm, I had my heart set on a red one.
- what spec do you have available? Damm, not the spec that I wanted.
would you have to order that in new for me?

And, I would never buy a new car in the first three months of the year - it might be last years car.

P.C.

MYOB wrote: »

+1 to that, my car has a 2007 manufacture AND import date but I bought it in the last quarter of 2008. Its not a 2007 car by reg or usage history...

But, it is a 2007 car.
When you were buying it, did you check this, and pay accordingly?

-Chris-

It's a 2008 car by our system...

L1011

P.C. wrote: »

But, it is a 2007 car.
When you were buying it, did you check this, and pay accordingly?

I knew when it had landed, but its a 2008 car here; it'd be a 58 plate if I imported it to England, it has a warranty for four years from the date I bought it.

Its a 2008 car, end of.

PARKHEAD67

mileage matters all the time. not the year. thats me anyway

stepbar

A lot of people are plate snobs e.g someone from cork would be seen driving a D plate and so on. Changing the system so the county of first reg is removed would solve that problem.

Iompair

Our system is fine, Dublin and the other high density counties could do with being broken up but beyond that leave it as is.

Been living in England the last couple of years and I still hate the messy reg plates over here.

Stinicker

PARKHEAD67 wrote: »

mileage matters all the time. not the year. thats me anyway

Quite often to me the previous owner is the biggest factor on whether I'd consider the car or not (if private sale). I have seen some 2010 cars quickly on their way to being wrecked already, covered in much, a few dents here and there, and god forbid we actually valet or care for our cars!

Irish people in general wreck their cars and have a Franco-Italian approach to motoring where cars are seen as utilitarian objects with scratches etc. In France parking sensors are when you hear your bumper collide with whatever is parked behind you! While in Italy you could see two stunning people getting out of a crappy fiat without the associated notions we have attached.

Irish people, like to hit potholes, have all manner of debris, pizza boxes etc. strewn within the car, and my biggest hate is smoking in the car :mad:. My cousin got a massively expensive Toyota Landcruiser a few years back for offroading and farming use, the lazy gimp was so untidy with cattle nuts and rations and never washed the jeep that Rats went into it and made a few thousand euros worth of work for an auto electrician to rewire the filthy thing! I swear some people!

macplaxton

Darsad wrote: »

I have heard that there is moves within the industry by some of the distributors to have have system changed in the hope that any change could even out the years business instead of having the majority of new sales front loaded to the first four months or so of the year.

Would make sense. That's exactly what happened in the UK from 1999 before the previous numbering system ran out. The SMMT lobbied hard for it as it was a PITA having the bulk of registrations on the 1st Aug when everyone wanted a "new" plate. Levels the demand out a bit having a 1st March / 1st September change.

pburns

Stinicker wrote: »

Quite often to me the previous owner is the biggest factor on whether I'd consider the car or not (if private sale). I have seen some 2010 cars quickly on their way to being wrecked already, covered in much, a few dents here and there, and god forbid we actually valet or care for our cars!

Irish people in general wreck their cars and have a Franco-Italian approach to motoring where cars are seen as utilitarian objects with scratches etc. In France parking sensors are when you hear your bumper collide with whatever is parked behind you! While in Italy you could see two stunning people getting out of a crappy fiat without the associated notions we have attached.

Irish people, like to hit potholes, have all manner of debris, pizza boxes etc. strewn within the car, and my biggest hate is smoking in the car :mad:. My cousin got a massively expensive Toyota Landcruiser a few years back for offroading and farming use, the lazy gimp was so untidy with cattle nuts and rations and never washed the jeep that Rats went into it and made a few thousand euros worth of work for an auto electrician to rewire the filthy thing! I swear some people!

Yes, but on the other hand, washing and waxing and polishing the car every weekend is a bit OTT. There is a happy medium. I live between town and country and it's the guys cooped up in suburbia with FA else to do over the weekend that indulge in this.

Theta

I worked in Germany for a year and a few of my colleagues would give out stink about their car registration system. They say its all paperwork and a money making system and it takes agggges to sort it all out.

I think have the reg tied to the car is better then taking it with you. And systems where if you move county (as in Germanys case) you have to rereg your car are ridiculous.

Tea drinker

Quite descriptive and effective.
Incredibly boring.
surely there is something better for those that like a decent custom reg?

Leonard Hofstadter

The current reg plate system is not a good one.

Some cars are automatically worth more if they have a "D" reg.

It is advertised in some Dublin garages(and even other garages around the country) as a "feature" of the car that it's got a D reg ffs:rolleyes:.

The year is a problem as well because if someone sees a car with a nintysomething reg it is automatically a banger(cue another thread on this forum moaning that there are more "bangers" on the road), what a load of crap.

The old reg plate system was done by counties as well but you'd want to be a complete nerd to know which county used "ZG" or "ZB" or whatever, plus the year was only obvious to reg plate nerds too.

Another problem with the current reg plate system is that all the sales are done in the very early parts of the year which means that sometimes we miss out on new product for several months, the new Prius went on sale in the UK back in April last year while we had to wait till November, Mazda waited until the end of last year to bring out the new 3 again because if they brought it out back in Mach/April there would have been no interest and they wouldn't have sold very many.

Theta

captainspeed wrote: »

Another problem with the current reg plate system is that all the sales are done in the very early parts of the year which means that sometimes we miss out on new product for several months, the new Prius went on sale in the UK back in April last year while we had to wait till November, Mazda waited until the end of last year to bring out the new 3 again because if they brought it out back in Mach/April there would have been no interest and they wouldn't have sold very many.

Are you sure about this? Are you sure they didnt want to just offload the current stock before releasing the new model? The UK would fly through stock compaired to Ireland.

Leonard Hofstadter

Even back in the days of high car sales in this country car makers used to wait until close to the end of a year to launch a new car.

You wouldn't go launching a new car in May because even then there was limited interest, far better to launch in Novemeber when people will be thinking about buying new cars and get the sales up next year, launching a car in November means that the car is a "new model" for the following year, launching in April/May means that the car is a year old the following year so there will be less interest.

The point about stock is true as well though.

Theta

Fair enough, Does it really matter though? Like you said the majority of people will be buying there cars at those times of the year so its wont matter to most as they buy around that time.

Del2005

zilog_jones wrote: »

How do they deal with this in all the countries without year-based registrations? The online registration check sites will probably give this info for free - the DVLA in the UK give Date of Liability, Date of First Registration and Year of Manufacture for free on theirs. Worst case scenario you could just ask to see the VLC or the VIN (date of manufacture can be decoded from this).

But that means you need to travel to see the car. Not good if you are looking at several cars or the car you fancy is on the far side of the country. Pictures won't work as if someone is willing to lie about the year of reg/manufacture then they can easily doctor a photo. With the year on the plate dishonest sellers can't scam the naive as easily.

For the people who want a different reg system. What do you want to change to that still won't have plate snobbery? Unless it goes to purely random reg plates then there will have to be a location or year added somewhere. Just look at the hassle that led to the creation of Dublin 6W.

keithclancy

captainspeed wrote: »

The current reg plate system is not a good one.

Some cars are automatically worth more if they have a "D" reg.

It is advertised in some Dublin garages(and even other garages around the country) as a "feature" of the car that it's got a D reg ffs:rolleyes:.

The year is a problem as well because if someone sees a car with a nintysomething reg it is automatically a banger(cue another thread on this forum moaning that there are more "bangers" on the road), what a load of crap.

The old reg plate system was done by counties as well but you'd want to be a complete nerd to know which county used "ZG" or "ZB" or whatever, plus the year was only obvious to reg plate nerds too.

Another problem with the current reg plate system is that all the sales are done in the very early parts of the year which means that sometimes we miss out on new product for several months, the new Prius went on sale in the UK back in April last year while we had to wait till November, Mazda waited until the end of last year to bring out the new 3 again because if they brought it out back in Mach/April there would have been no interest and they wouldn't have sold very many.

That problem is with the people paying more for a 'D' reg, not with the Plate system itself.

Ireland is small enough for the system to be completely adequate, there would be no gain from Changing it.

the_syco

captainspeed wrote: »

Some cars are automatically worth more if they have a "D" reg.

Thought it was only the dubs who actually cared about that? No-one I know gives a damn where their car is from.

captainspeed wrote: »

The year is a problem as well because if someone sees a car with a nintysomething reg it is automatically a banger(cue another thread on this forum moaning that there are more "bangers" on the road), what a load of crap.

The same people would probably consider anything with an "old" Irish XYZ plate as a banger as well, as opposed to a classic.

Leonard Hofstadter

the_syco wrote: »

Thought it was only the dubs who actually cared about that? No-one I know gives a damn where their car is from.

Yeah but Dublin has something like 1/3rd of the country's population so it's as if what they say/want goes, particularly premium segment stuff where the percentage with D regs is much higher.

FWIW in Cork C regs are worth more, some people down here would not buy a car that doesn't have a C reg, again a bit like Dublin in Cork we can be choosy seeing as around 1 in 6 new cars have Cork regs.

pburns

keithclancy wrote: »

That problem is with the people paying more for a 'D' reg, not with the Plate system itself.

Think it's easier to change a reg system than change human nature...

Logic aside, the old pre-87 system was more interesting, especially in certain counties (ICI, DIC, VIP!). When I was a nipper I NEVER heard anyone banging on about the year of a car. If people wanted to show off they had a new car they'd have to drive around with a piece of cardbord scrawled 'For Reg' stuck on!

And maybe I was a little more anal back then but I could remember the numbers of all my relatives cars (and their previous cars). Now I struggle to remember the number of my own car...

baalthor

peasant wrote: »

It does no such thing ...it simply specifies (quite clearly) year and county of first registration. All that comes after that are people and their strange preconceptions and prejudices.

People and their "strange preconceptions and prejudices" play a big part in determining the price of goods for sale in any market.

The number plate on a car often does have an impact on the overall selling price.
Mileage, driving history, economy, colour, spec, power and so on are intrinsic properties of a car; it's reasonable for a buyer to take them into account. A number plate is an extrinsic part of the car; it's a number that the government requires that you attach to the vehicle. Ideally it shouldn't make any difference to the price of the car but it often does, especially as our system makes the year and county obvious for everyone to see.
And because our numbers are not exchangeable or tradable some people get lucky with desirable numbers/letters while others are lumbered with TNs, OYs and so on.
It doesn't matter that the seller thinks this is silly, the car price (for a used car) is determined by the buyer and enough buyers like D more than the other regs to make cars with D regs more saleable. After D many then prefer their own county code.

For exampe, let's say there are five 2008 ex demo BWM 320s for sale on carzone, all similar mileage and condition, identical colour, engine and spec. Four have "TN" reg and one has "D" reg. Which one is most likely to sell first? (or sell at all in the current market?)

The above is an example of what I meant by market distortion; the price of a car is partly determined by an arbitrary number/letter code attached to the vehicle and not the core properties of the car.

peasant wrote: »

If their was a different system, people would find other criteria to misinterpret it by

No system will be perfect but it would be easy to design an alternative system where these effects would be minimsed. There is no need for the current year or county code to appear on the plate at all.
Also, allowing people to trade plates would seperate the value of the plate from the value of the car.

Even from the point of view of practicality it's strange having a system where some letters (D, C) are "overworked" with some people ending up with six digit numbers while other letters (A,B,E,F,H,J,N,P,Q,U,V,X,Y,) are not used at all.

P.C.

peasant wrote: »

It does no such thing ...it simply specifies (quite clearly) year and county of first registration. All that comes after that are people and their strange preconceptions and prejudices.
If their was a different system, people would find other criteria to misinterpret it by

MYOB wrote: »

+1 to that, my car has a 2007 manufacture AND import date but I bought it in the last quarter of 2008. Its not a 2007 car by reg or usage history...

-Chris- wrote: »

It's a 2008 car by our system...

MYOB wrote: »

I knew when it had landed, but its a 2008 car here; it'd be a 58 plate if I imported it to England, it has a warranty for four years from the date I bought it.

Its a 2008 car, end of.

It only has 08 on the reg plate.
Nothing you say will make it a 2008 car - I don't care what system you use.
It was manufactured in 2007 - that is a fact that you can not change - that is what it says on the documents.