Moving private plate from old to new car.

monkeymatt76

Hi all, 

Just looking for some advice. 

Purchased a new car at the weekend, due for delivery in the next week or 2.

We have a private plate on our current car that we are trading in and that the garage have agreed to put onto the new car. They've told me they'll advise when they have a date for delivery to them, at which point we should put the plate on retention, send them the retention docs and then hopefully the new V5 arrives before we go to pick up the new car and trade in the old one.

They also advised not to bother putting the old plates onto the old car, bring it to them with the private plate on and they'll change it before they send it off to auction (or whatever they end up doing with it).

My question is, how long are you allowed to drive a car with private plates on after they have been put on retention? I'm hoping from the time they tell me its on its way to the time of pick up will be no more than 5 days or so. Will this be an issue?

I'm loathe to pay to put on plates onto the old car just to hand it over a few days later. 

cw8825

you can drive with the plates until you get confirmation that your registration has been removed from the vehicle.

if done online it says this is completed immediately

GrumpyDil

Have a look at the option for transferring a private plate off and onto a new car using the code that gets generated when you remove the plate from the existing car.

I think you should be able to do that with the new car on the day. 

I would also suggest you need to consider issues with ANPR and insurance if you drive on the old plates. 

Mildly_Miffed

monkeymatt76 said:

My question is, how long are you allowed to drive a car with private plates on after they have been put on retention?

You aren't.

I'm hoping from the time they tell me its on its way to the time of pick up will be no more than 5 days or so. Will this be an issue?

Will you be caught? Probably not.

I'm loathe to pay to put on plates onto the old car just to hand it over a few days later.

The <£30 for two new pieces of plastic, assuming you don't still have them from before you put the current plate on, will quickly be overshadowed by any penalties if you do get caught with the wrong plate displayed.

The dealer are going to have to supply and fit new pieces of plastic anyway... so why not ask them to do it when you get the confirmation from DVLA?

facade

I'm sure some people don't bother,

but you should inform your insurer of the 'plate change back to the original (and pay £££££ "admin").

The private plate will either be in limbo whilst on retention or allocated to the "new" car, so you need the old plates back on and insurance for that registration (you did keep them?) or if you pass one of those "Police" that you normally only see on TV they will get all agitated that the PNC check doesn't match your car, and make a fuss that the car you are driving isn't "insured".

Best thing I can think of is to let them register the car with a new registration and get  the 'plates.

When you get to the dealer in your current car you put the number on retention in the car park and remove the plates.

Then transfer your insurance to the new one and drive home. If you can transfer the number to the new one on the spot, then bonus, only one "admin" fee and you keep the plates for your new car safe until you do it again.

Otherwise, wait a couple of days for the V5 to arrive, then do the transfer, fit your private 'plate and store the originals.

GrumpyDil

As long as you do it during the day what @facade says should work.

It's what we did on a recent 2nd hand car purchase, albeit oddly the dealer registered the car we were buying in my wife's name a week earlier for some reason!! 

flashg67

I found it less stressful to put the plate on retention some weeks before hand, put the old plates back on the car, and get the updated V5 in hand. Once I had the new car, I transferred the plate to the new car - takes minutes to do online and fitting a set of plates is really easy yourself

GrumpyDil

flashg67 said:

I found it less stressful to put the plate on retention some weeks before hand, put the old plates back on the car, and get the updated V5 in hand. Once I had the new car, I transferred the plate to the new car - takes minutes to do online and fitting a set of plates is really easy yourself

Which we would have done, aside from the 30.00 admin fee for updating the plate number which was charged by my wife's insurer even doing it online (unlike with Aviva where there is no admin fee for online changes).