Checking The Age Of Your Vehicle

1. Checking The Age Of Your Vehicle Want to know if your car is suitable for the personalised number plates you’ve got your eye on? Read on for our simple guide. www.plates4less.co.uk

2. Why Do I Need To Know The Age Of My Vehicle? Our government is keen to prevent fraudsters attempting to make vehicles look younger than they actually are so that they can then sell them for more money. To prevent this from happening, the DVLA does not permit 'younger' registration marks to be transferred to older vehicles. However it does permit 'older' marks to be transferred to younger vehicles without hindrance We have a vehicle age suitability checker on our website, which can be accessed at the url below: http://www.plates4less.co.uk/Private-Number-Plates-Suitability-Checker.asp www.plates4less.co.uk

3. Current Style Issued 01/09/01 - Present There are a few different styles of personalised number plates, so their age indicators will be in different places. Current style registration marks are the most recent style, first issued in September 2001. Buyers often choose this style for personalised number plates, as there are a few more letters to play with than with other styles. • The registration mark below is current style. It is made up of two letters, then two numbers, followed by 3 further letters. • It is the numbers in the middle of the plate that are the age indicator here. For example, the “13” in this plate means that the registration mark was first issued in March 2013. This means that the car/vehicle that bears it will need to be first registered on or after the first on March 2013. www.plates4less.co.uk

4. Prefix Style Issued 01/08/83 – 01/03/01 These registration marks came out before the current style ones and were issued between 01/08/83 and 01/03/01. They make great personalised number plates, as they are slightly shorter than current style ones that are displayed on most cars on the road nowadays. This makes them look a little more obviously personalised. • This style comprises of one letter at the start, up to three numbers, and then three letters. • With this style, it is the first letter that indicate the mark’s age. The letters at the start range from “A” to “Y”, with each representing a specific issuing period. For example, in the picture below, the letter “M” signifies that the registration mark would have been issued on the first of August 1994. • If your car carries a current style registration mark, then it is new enough to display any prefix style personalised number plates you like, so you are spoilt for choice! www.plates4less.co.uk

5. Suffix Style Issued 01/01/64 – 01/08/82 • Suffix style registration marks were the first plates with age indicators to be introduced in the UK. Like prefix style plates, they are more rare than the current style, and because of their rarity, they do tend to stand out well as personalised number plates. • Suffix style registration marks work in a similar way to prefix style ones, but this time it is the final letter that acts as the age indicator. So, they are like backwards prefix style plates, as they are made up of three letters, followed by up to three numbers and then one solitary letter at the end. • In the case of the registration mark below, the letter “B” means that the registration mark was first issued on 01.01.64. Any vehicle registered on or after this date can carry the mark, so that is quite a lot of suitable vehicles! • The older the personalised number plates are, the more valuable they tend to be, so many suffix styles will be dearer than current or prefix style personalised number plates. Many argue that the attention they attract is worth the extra money! www.plates4less.co.uk

6. Dateless Plates Some personalised number plates have no age indicators, so they can go onto all MOT’d and taxed vehicles. This makes them highly desirable to buyers, especially if they want to hide the age of their vehicle. There are two kinds of dateless personalised number plates that we advertise at Plates 4 Less: • Mainland UK dateless plates – Starting with registration mark “A1”, these were the first number plates to be issued in the UK. These are the rarest marks we advertise, because they have been around for the longest. Because of this, they also tend to be among the most sought after and valuable personalised number plates, especially for customers who see buying cherished registration marks as an investment. • Northern Irish number plates – Number plates issued in Northern Ireland are all completely dateless, as they have no age indicators in them. They can be transferred to mainland UK vehicles, so they are very popular for those wanting to disguise the age of their car. Northern Irish registration marks comprise of three letters, one of which must be either a letter “I” or “Z”, followed by up to four numbers. www.plates4less.co.uk

7. How Can I Check The Age Of My Car? The age of your vehicle can be checked in a couple of ways so that you can determine which personalised number plates it can display: • If your car doesn’t currently have personalised number plates on it already, using the previous pages, you can figure out what style of plate it carries and where its age indicator is. You can then look up what registration period the indicator stands for. • By typing your current registration mark into our vehicle age suitability checker: http://www.plates4less.co.uk/Private-Number-Plates-Suitability-Checker.asp • By locating your V5C registered keepers document (log book). The exact date of your vehicle’s first registration will be on the left hand side of the front inside page. www.plates4less.co.uk

8. Need More Information? Got a few more questions? We’d be happy to help! Visit our site at www.plates4less.co.uk for frequently asked questions and several useful tools. www.plates4less.co.uk