Perhaps that's what's puzzling me. I mean, who really cares how old a car is at a glance? If you need to know, then surely you'll check the VIN number or some other more permanent identifying mark rather than rely purely on the registration number, no? What is the benefit of having the year of first registration (or earlier) displayed at both ends of the vehicle?

I hope it doesn't appear that I'm poking fun at the system; I'm genuinely curious. I thought that the year-letter system was originally introduced because they had run out of numbers and this was a way to provide more, yet it seems to have segued into a de-facto date stamp!

 

Glad I could liven up your lives. :p

 

Bah, looks like we'll need to wait until 2031 and move to Reading of all places to get an RX8 plate under the new scheme.

 

eccles - Feel free to poke fun at the system. It is pathetic !
You are quite right - why should anyone need to know how old a car is at a glace ?

Fact is that we Brits are even sadder than that - a large proportion of us buy new cars BECAUSE ours are looking old (on the plate). i.e. people want to be seen in a car less than 3 years old or something.

The whole change to 2 new registrations a year was to give the car industry a boost. It used to be something stupid like 50% of all new cars were bought in August (so that people had the full 12 months on their 'new' plate ).
They changed to 2 new plates/year so now the peak sales are in Sep/March.

This is why the UK release of the RX8 (the reason we are all here , lest we forget) is so critical. The car is scheduled for release on 31st July. Assuming this happens the car will be on an '03' plate. If we wait 4 more weeks we get the car on a '53' plate.
"So what ? " you cry ! Well , when it comes to resale , a car registered on 31st August on an 03 plate will be worth less than an identical car registered on 1st September on a 53 plate.
How sad are we ?

Personally - I will go for the 31July option. I wanna drive it , not read it ! !

Morgan.

 

I too will be taking delivery as soon as possible. The new system is supposed to lessen the impact on the cars value of the registration plate, and so encourage car buyers to spread their purchases over the whole year. It's much better for the industry to have a steady flow of car purchases, and not have to stockpile them up for a couple of months ahead of 1st August.

For some reason us Brits like to compare car ages. Some kind of macho crap probably. (Mines newer than yours !!)

 

I am afraid that there are no other identifying marks on the car to tell you its age other than the plates. There are some other dates stamped on the car, but these are more to do with manufacturing dates and are meaningless here.

The only other way to tell how old a car is is on the registration document.

Shahpor

 

I agree, it is a sad state of affairs. I think too much attention is paid to how old cars are here. I for one would not care if a car was a 03 or a 53 plate.

The other thing that really affects re-sale here is distance travelled. For some reason people here believe that once a car has reached 100,000 miles it is dead and the value drops dramatically. Modern cars are designed to travel more than this and should still be reasonably reliable if well maintained. It is just one of those misconceptions.


Shahpor

 

What I don't understand is why the new registrations are March and September. Surely it would have been simpler for 0 registrations to start in January and 5s in July. At the moment a 52 registration could have been registered in February 2003.

The end of the prefix system gave them the opportunity to bring in a much better system, but all they did was carry on the old one in a new form (albeit with more obvious regional idenification).

I just hope we don't eventually get a situation where certain regional registrations are worth more than other from areas deemed as 'less desirable'.

 

Well as I'm putting 'R8 PEW' on my car it's irrelevant when I buy or register it. It's an RX-8, that'll do me!

 

What is the meaning there ?

Is R8 ref the car and PEW your name ?

 

January is a bad time for the industry as no-one has any money after christmas, and July everyone is on holiday. I presume that the car industry said when would be best for them.

 

Which leads to the question of why should the registration system exist simply to benefit the car industry?

 

I'm sure it isn't there to benefit the car industry. It's the government that gets the money - and I'm sure they'd like to make as much as possible by making cars look "newer" when everyone is around and has the money to buy.

More sold cars = more registrations = more £££ to the government.



-andy-