Just found out the car I'm buying is from Northern Ireland.

fivetide

jeanmd wrote: »

Thank you.
I've read the reviews on EH so decided to pay the difference on my credit card (paying it of next month of course) then if anything major goes wrong at least I have some fallback. Luckily they don't charge for using CC's unlike Perry's.

They do usually try to sting you for that HPI check though!

It might have been added on already at a vastly inflated price.

zappahey

jeanmd wrote: »

A HPI check has been done and I will be given the certificate to keep with the paperwork.

Does a mainland HPI check verify the NI history?

I don't know if it's changed but it used to be that an NI repaired write off could be registered in the UK with a clean history and vice versa

Lirin

Yeah, MOT after first four years in NI. Barring that, our MOT's are far more intensive than England- there are even rumours here that some testers are designated 'failers'!
I have seen cars fail for very minor reasons, compared to the state I have seen some in across the water....
I'm not sure whether government run or garage run is better to be honest. There's less incentive maybe for garages to find faults and inflate a repair bill, though here you can be weeks at times before there's a free appointment.

The only problem I ever had was trying to register an English-reg, ex-Police import over here- the system apparantly only recognised either Japanese or European as imports, of which mine was neither! The slight modifications that had been done didn't help either. I don't recall a fee being mentioned to re-register, but we stayed with the English plate.

I do find talking to Swansea can be a bit of a pain at times- if you get someone clueless, they'll keep insisting you need to talk to Ireland.

almillar

zappahey - different companies do it different ways, but OP's HPI check stated that it excluded NI (those are familiar words for us!).
Lirin - when was the last time you tried to book a test? I haven't had to wait weeks since MOT2 came along years ago and they had a backlog.

GAZ237

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

Some people choose NI number plates as personal number plates, when I was buying a car last time the car I almost bought had an NI plate as a private number and the one I did buy also had an NI plate as a personal number plate. Both cars were bought and originally registered in Scotland and reverted to Scottish number plates when the owners took the NI plate back off.

John

Theres no such thing as Scottish number plates?

People like to have N I plates as its hides the year of the car they have.

Lum

GAZ237 wrote: »

Theres no such thing as Scottish number plates?

Technically there is. Modern GB number plates include a two letter code that indicate where the vehicle was registered.

SA - SJ = Glasgow
SK - SO = Edinburgh
SP - ST = Dundee
SU - SW = Aberdeen
SX - SZ = Inverness

SC07 plates made for popular private plates that year

Lirin

GAZ237 wrote: »

Theres no such thing as Scottish number plates?

People like to have N I plates as its hides the year of the car they have.

The first letter is the only thing that will show the age, in a way- ABZ will run til the nos reach 9999, then BBZ, etc.... 1000 is a reserved no, I think. It kind of works.... My mum's plate is worth a bit being a K reg, with two digits. The system stops working if plates are transferred, though.

QNI are kit cars, and I'm unsure why I or Z has to be a part of every plate. You can roughly determine the age of a NI car by it's plate, though.

colino

The most important concern you have is that it is ex-motability. I'm less and less impressed with these things and it is all down to devious owners covering up wrecked cars to get their bonus and the assigned servicing garages being the usual suspects that, for example, you wouldn't go into for a new tyre.