Car Reg system is idiotic

Stekelly wrote:

stick to the soccer forum redspider.
Oh, and the reg system is great.

Licence to sell for those with 07 plates

Sunday, January 21, 2007 - By Tony Colley
Can you believe that we are nearly one month into the eighth year of the 21st century?

Unbelievable to think that a 99 registration plate is on the front of an eight-year-old car which is bound to have mileage in six figures.

Is it cool to have an 07 registration or does that desire come from a deep-seated insecurity that is rooted in a fear of owning anything that approaches its sell-by date?

No one can deny the occasion of that moment in early January when the first new year registration plate is spotted.

My reaction is firstly to identify the brand and model of the vehicle before looking at the proud and recently impoverished person behind the wheel.

Figures are up and starting to reach the lofty heights of the millennium year, when car sales reached an all-time high, driven by that compulsion to have a new-smelling car with that distinctive ‘double 0’ status.

Sales of cars for 2007 are expected to top 200,000, as figures for the early part of January would suggest a rise generally.

Naturally, all new car buyers are delighted with the Bond-like status of an 07 registration, and are happy to have waited until the arrival of the new year to get it.

In years to come, that car will psychologically be a year younger than an 06 car registered last December. Consequently, its re-sale value will be higher, irrespective of the mileage on the clock.

It’s not surprising that end-of-year car sales are lower and good deals can be done for a November/December car if you don’t mind the fact that, very soon, it will be last year’s car.

Compare two identical new cars with zero mileage. The brand new January 07 example will be marginally more expensive than the late December 06 one, but it’s three to five years later that it becomes much more noticeable.

When it comes to value for money, the more discerning and less ego-driven car buyer will wisely seek a model that’s about to be discontinued in favour of a newer version - advance warnings of replacement models can often be found in the motoring press.

If it’s an ‘end-of-year’ car that’s better still, so real bargains can be found in the classified ads. Check this out. Two Volkswagen Passats, both are 1.6 FSI Comfortlines. One is the old 2005 model with 21,000 kilometres, the other is the new 2006 model with 9,000 kilometres on the clock.

The difference in price is a massive €6,000.

Similarly, two BMW 520 2.2Ls - one is the current model (20 0 4 with 37,000 kilometres), one is the old (2003 with 62,000 kilometres).These have a difference in price of €13,000.

Across the water the registration system, while not having the actual year in the display, is not unlike our own.

However, the age is denoted by a letter, which changes every six months, so with a little knowledge, it is easy to work out how new or old the car is.

This perhaps slightly reduces the jump in value that we are accustomed to here in January every year.

Years ago, a car registered in a very rural region like Donegal or Sligo could never fetch the same price as its urban equivalent, but today the differences are marginal. The perception used to be that a car that has spent its life in a rural situation might have had a rougher ride than its urban counterpart and might not be in as good a condition.

The county identification registration system, introduced in 1987, is useful when tracing a car’s geographical history, but a complicated formula of letters could confuse even the most nerdy amongst us.

D for Dublin and C for Cork make sense but most are two letters - decipher WH, WW, WD, WX, TS and TN. Fairly easy for a native like myself but I have had difficulty in explaining some of these to tourists.

Vehicle registration numbers in Ireland were introduced in 1903 and many veteran and vintage cars carry very distinctive numbers. All ‘numbers’ contained either I or Z and this was consistent up to 1987.

Prior to that, a witty buyer might order an individual number eg, VIP 1 (this subsequently fetched a record price at auction). However, RIP 1 might not be considered appropriate on a hearse.

At one point in the early 1970s it was decided to reverse the order displayed on the plate.

Until then the letters preceded the numbers, so the entire sequence could run again with the letters at the end.

I recall spotting an Alfa Romeo in Dublin with the very individual registration 1 Z - the reverse of its counterpart, Z 1, from about 30 years before.

We in Ireland don’t attach the same significance to distinctive registration numbers as our nearest neighbours do, preferring to have a less conspicuous vehicle identity.

It is also illegal to transfer numbers from car to car in Ireland.

A glance at the classified ads in the English Sunday newspapers will show columns of pretty tenuous ‘numbers’ that are usually neither anagram nor acronym.

Recently at a classic car auction, the registration number M1 fetched a higher price than that achieved for a classic AC Cobra from the 50s, reaching over stg£300,000. The winning bid was from the proud father of a boy called Michael.

Ultimately our current system, like all previous ones, will become exhausted. I understand that there are more changes on the way and the suggestion is that new codes will be added to the administrative counties currently sharing codes.

These are likely to be CK for County Cork, GY for County Galway, DR for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, FL for Fingal and SN for South Dublin.

Confused? You will be.