Does the year / county on the plate really matter? Why not remove them from now on?

Commotion Ocean

I think a lot of people use these as a selling point, you often hear dealers saying "get you 162 today!" etc.

Samw goes with county sometimes. I think the year / county is a snobbery issue sometimes

Why can't we just have 4 random (non-repeated letters) followed by three random and non-repeated numbers.

If that were the case, the number of possible combinations would be:

26*25*24*23*10*9*8=258,336,000 combinations.

Who cares is a car is 99 and from Leitrim as long as it is well-serviced, safe and works well.

biko

Couldn't agree more.

So many threads on D-plates it's nuts.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

You are just proposing a similar system to the one we had before.

Personally I like the current system. I like to be able to tell the year of a car immediately. It's also so much easier to remember a reg number from a quick glance.

tossy

We have one of the best and easiest to work out reg plate systems in the world, why change it? Getting the year split into 2 was a master stroke by dealers however.

Commotion Ocean

Why not allow personalised reg plates too?

tossy

dfeo wrote: »

Why not allow personalised reg plates too?

They missed a trick raising the cost of choosing your own number from 300 to 1000.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

dfeo wrote: »

Why not allow personalised reg plates too?

Why? It would be pure pretentiousness. Plus, you said you wanted a random number system.

Commotion Ocean

Eliana Tinkling Nomad wrote: »

Why? It would be pure pretentiousness. Plus, you said you wanted a random number system.

Unless you're buying a car or just being nosey about how old (or young) your neighbours' car is, then you have no reason whatsoever to know the year of the car.

If you find yourself in either of the aforementioned circumstances, you can easily check the year with the tap of a smartphone on mywheels.ie, etc.

Can I ask what specific reasons you have for wanting to know the year at a glance?

bear1

I'd love it if we re-sized the number plates.
I personally always liked how the Italians do it, small one at the front and normal one at the rear.

dar83

dfeo wrote: »

Unless you're buying a car or just being nosey about how old (or young) your neighbours' car is, then you have no reason whatsoever to know the year of the car.

If you find yourself in either of the aforementioned circumstances, you can easily check the year with the tap of a smartphone on mywheels.ie, etc.

Can I ask what specific reasons you have for wanting to know the year at a glance?

Oh well I'm sorry officer, I didn't quite catch what model it was exactly, but they drove off in a Red Fiesta...



...



...

Del2005

dfeo wrote: »

I think a lot of people use these as a selling point, you often hear dealers saying "get you 162 today!" etc.

Samw goes with county sometimes. I think the year / county is a snobbery issue sometimes

Why can't we just have 4 random (non-repeated letters) followed by three random and non-repeated numbers.

If that were the case, the number of possible combinations would be:

26*25*24*23*10*9*8=258,336,000 combinations.

Who cares is a car is 99 and from Leitrim as long as it is well-serviced, safe and works well.

I like our current system. People who buy cars get great value and people who buy a plate are kept happy. It doesn't matter what's on the plate as snobbery is inbuilt into humans so they'd just start picking red cars as bad.

gctest50

Should write the reg number down the sides in nice big letters like a taxi

Autosport

I'd only ever drive a KK reg I'd like a personalised plate Auto KK Sport

_Kaiser_

tossy wrote: »

We have one of the best and easiest to work out reg plate systems in the world, why change it? Getting the year split into 2 was a master stroke by dealers however.

Master stroke for dealers maybe, moronic in every other sense - FFS wasn't part of the excuse that "13" reg cars would be seen as unlucky? :rolleyes:

Now we have a system that supposedly makes a difference between cars registered at the start of the year and the middle of the year but which in reality makes f*ck all difference 2/3 years+ later .. it just looks ridiculous on the plates instead.

Speaking of plates though, I still think that they're missing an obvious trick by not allowing buyers to re-register a car (once) to their resident county on purchasing a used car. That'd neatly solve the problem of people who want a car associated with where they're from, and generate additional revenue if they threw on say a €250 charge for it.... but without needing to mess yet again with the reg format/system itself.

Personally speaking I miss my D plate every time I go out to the car.. it might be irrational but I'd be a perfect customer for the above idea.

bear1

It would piss me off no end if I bought a car with say ww and cause I live in galway I'd have to fork out 250 just to have G on the plate.
Leave it alone I'd say but make it feasible to have personalised plates.
If you want to to have your county on the plate then it should be for free.

CiniO

IMO either plate should be always amended to match current owner county of residence, or alternatively county symbol shouldn't be noted on number plates at all.


Having it like currently where country mark is associated only with first owner, makes no sense.

Del2005

CiniO wrote: »

IMO either plate should be always amended to match current owner county of residence, or alternatively county symbol shouldn't be noted on number plates at all.


Having it like currently where country mark is associated only with first owner, makes no sense.

It's easy to tell which county a car is from by the bit of platted wool hanging off the rear view mirror.

franer1970

dfeo wrote: »

Why not allow personalised reg plates too?

Eliana Tinkling Nomad wrote: »

Why? It would be pure pretentiousness. Plus, you said you wanted a random number system.

So have a tax on pretentiousness, what's the downside?!

DVLA in UK has made £2.5 billion from its personalised registration service since it started in 1989.

Source: https://insidedvla.blog.gov.uk/2015/07/31/dvlas-personalised-registrations-auction-contract-renewed/

Cee-Jay-Cee

bear1 wrote: »

It would piss me off no end if I bought a car with say ww and cause I live in galway I'd have to fork out 250 just to have G on the plate.
Leave it alone I'd say but make it feasible to have personalised plates.
If you want to to have your county on the plate then it should be for free.

But you wouldn't have to, the suggestion was for a system to allow people to do it if they wanted to. I think its a good idea also.

What I hate is the stupid snobbery associated with D plates. My experience of driving in Dublin is that you spend most of the time stuck in traffic and so (especially with diesel cars) your more likely to have DMF,DPF and EGR problems than cars from rural areas where theyre up to speed and driven in high gears almost immediately. The roads are also destroyed with pot holes and repairs and are in the worst state of repair compared to all other counties...yet somehow stupid Joe public has been conned into thinking a D reg car is somehow better than a DL or SO or LD car.

I wouldn't even consider a D reg car and last time I was buying deliberately ruled out all D reg cars for the very reasons I stated above.

Its about time people stopped believing all the BS fed by dealers, they bought into the whole diesel BS and many are getting stung now. The whole D plate thing is the same BS!

bear1

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

But you wouldn't have to, the suggestion was for a system to allow people to do it if they wanted to. I think its a good idea also.

What I hate is the stupid snobbery associated with D plates. My experience of driving in Dublin is that you spend most of the time stuck in traffic and so (especially with diesel cars) your more likely to have DMF,DPF and EGR problems than cars from rural areas where theyre up to speed and driven in high gears almost immediately. The roads are also destroyed with pot holes and repairs and are in the worst state of repair compared to all other counties...yet somehow stupid Joe public has been conned into thinking a D reg car is somehow better than a DL or SO or LD car.

I wouldn't even consider a D reg car and last time I was buying deliberately ruled out all D reg cars for the very reasons I stated above.

Its about time people stopped believing all the BS fed by dealers, they bought into the whole diesel BS and many are getting stung now. The whole D plate thing is the same BS!

Ah I understood that there would be no choice. My mistake.
I generally (but don't really care) would rather have a G car then a D and unfortunately due to snobbery would have to rule out any RN/LM/SO cars cause people just picture **** boxes hanging out in fields most of their lives.
Maybe instead of county it should be province? L (D for the capital). M, C and U?

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

bear1 wrote: »

I generally (but don't really care) would rather have a G car then a D and unfortunately due to snobbery would have to rule out any RN/LM/SO cars cause people just picture **** boxes hanging out in fields most of their lives.

It's funny you say that, my car is an RN reg but, in my area of the county, the roads are spot on and it rarely gets driven on bad surfaces. It spends no time in fields :pac: Compare that to a G reg car based around Dunmore or Castleblakeney which is getting the bag rattled out of it on a daily basis and I know which I'd prefer. I've also lived in 2 counties that people would seem to avoid buying cars from (Kerry and Donegal) and depending on where you live in those counties, again, there are large networks of excellent roads.

A lot of people seem to attribute good roads to counties with the larger cities (Galway, Limerick, Cork) but all of those counties have huge rural areas with roads as bad as Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon or anywhere else. Dublin is the notable exception, but the downside of city driving on a car's clutch and brakes is well documented.

Really, each car should be taken on it's own merits.

bear1

I'll add loughrea and Craughwell to your list too for places with **** roads in galway.

kirving

Within about an hour of crossing into Donegal, I had my mind made up that I will never buy a DL reg car.

Good roads in general, but driven by absolute lunatics. Generalisation sure, but certainly some truth in it.

As for D reg - I can see clutch and DPF issues, along with years between services due to low mileage and being scared to go to a main dealer due to cost. I'm from Dublin and know loads of people like this. Living in Galway now, and the local mechanic is known by all.

In general though, I think country people take marginally better care of their cars, because they mean more to them. No car and you're screwed, whereas in Dublin you can drive until it breaks, and get the bus when it does.

BobMc

personally i think the plate should be linked and registered to an owner rather than a vehicle, easier tracking for id insurance tax, plate follows you to next car you buy too

Terrontress

dar83 wrote: »

Oh well I'm sorry officer, I didn't quite catch what model it was exactly, but they drove off in a Red Fiesta...



...



...

I think that the Irish system leads to more issues with identification, certainly when compared to the English one.

Some years Dublin has had over 100,000 registrations. That's like a phone number to remember if you need to call the guards. 09 D 117214. Compared to BA 59 RLL. And that's before you have T, TN and TS or L and LK.

Shannon757

Terrontress wrote: »

. And that's before you have T, TN and TS or L and LK.

They're gone now, it's T and L now.

J.pilkington

tossy wrote: »

Getting the year split into 2 was a master stroke by dealers however.

I would disagree and say it has lead to an improvement for customers / garage owners and staff, especially in terms of making the car sales industry more sustainable.

Negatives of the old process which I think the new process has partially addressed:
- cashlow issues as dealers used to sell so much at the start of a year and had to make it last to the next annual rush
- poor customer experience as dealers were so busy dealing with the annual rush, I remember going to the famous al Hayes on a Saturday one November and there was an actual queue of people in a line outside his office waiting to deal with him, once you got into him he got you in and out as fast as possible (obviously not a great experience only off set by saving a good wad of cash)
- it's a more rewarding career now for sales staff as there is a better chance of a more steady income and they get a small bit of their lives back in q4 / q1 periods
- frequent delivery delays as so many people want their car by Jan 2nd has eased, from the port to delivery trucks, prep, handover etc
- good for the nct in the future as annual tests will be more spread out?
- garages now have a better range of trades in throughout the year

I don't see dealers benefiting too much from extra sales as this would have to mean people trade their cars in every 6mths which doesn't happen.

rocky

Go the whole way and split the year by month, 171-179, 17A-C - third digit is already there...
Cheap(er) SH cars with people upgrading to the new plates.

tossy

J.pilkington wrote: »

I would disagree and say it has lead to an improvement for customers / garage owners and staff, especially in terms of making the car sales industry more sustainable.

I think you will find you are agreeing with me there , not disagreeing

Lex Luthor

I'm a cork man living in Kildare with a WH plate, I couldn't give a flying fcuk what the number or letter is on the plate as long as I know what year it was and the car is right for me

pastense

Its a collaboration between the Motor Trade (good for snob sales) and Government (revenue). Long time known that Cars are the fastest and best way to remove money from the punters pocket.

Seth Brundle

We should have the following:
* reg date
* location (county & town)
* reg number
* engine cc
* motor tax type (cc or CO2)
* motor tax annual rate
* people carrying capacity


Simple system really e.g. for a BMW 520d registered in Leixlip, Co. Kildare: 20161111-KE-LX-12345-1995-CO2-360-5

grogi

dfeo wrote: »

Who cares is a car is 99 and from Leitrim as long as it is well-serviced, safe and works well.

Year is IMHO ok, it is just the county designation that's nonsense...

CramCycle

Terrontress wrote: »

I think that the Irish system leads to more issues with identification, certainly when compared to the English one.

Some years Dublin has had over 100,000 registrations. That's like a phone number to remember if you need to call the guards. 09 D 117214. Compared to BA 59 RLL. And that's before you have T, TN and TS or L and LK.

But it is great for the many people with bad memories. Describe the car. It was red, ford, a small one, Dublin reg,2000. I remember that the number started with such and such. Cuts down on a lot of rubbish. You could just make the registration of counties an even split. Therefore only X amount can be registered in Dublin, and then any dealers in Dublin needing more can just order ones with the county with a low number of buyers.

kbannon wrote: »

We should have the following:
* reg date
* location (county & town)
* reg number
* engine cc
* motor tax type (cc or CO2)
* motor tax annual rate
* people carrying capacity


Simple system really e.g. for a BMW 520d registered in Leixlip, Co. Kildare: 20161111-KE-LX-12345-1995-CO2-360-5

A picture of the registered owner on the bonnet, with a description including height, weight, physically distinguishing characteristics etc.

Favourite book or music genre could also be included.

Indricotherium

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Master stroke for dealers maybe, moronic in every other sense - FFS wasn't part of the excuse that "13" reg cars would be seen as unlucky? :rolleyes:

Now we have a system that supposedly makes a difference between cars registered at the start of the year and the middle of the year but which in reality makes f*ck all difference 2/3 years+ later .. it just looks ridiculous on the plates instead.

It is ridiculous looking, but there are cars already registered with 13, 14, 15 on the plates, from the beginning of the 20th century, and there are only going to be more as time goes on.

The 131 etc system neatly eliminates any problems that might crop up with that.

Stephenc66

Eliana Tinkling Nomad wrote: »

You are just proposing a similar system to the one we had before.

Personally I like the current system. I like to be able to tell the year of a car immediately. It's also so much easier to remember a reg number from a quick glance.

In the old system the letters were not random they gave you the county and the year of registration as in IE was Clare and UIE was and '85 Clare Reg

Dublin plates began with a Z a ZH is a '73 reg

Before the change if you imported a second hand car you received the next registration in line regardless of how old the car was. Therefore you could have a current model two year old car with a current year registration.

It was the Motor traders who campaigned for our new system and every car having an age related plate as per it's date of first registration if imported second hand

J.pilkington

tossy wrote: »

I think you will find you are agreeing with me there , not disagreeing

I see. I interpreted the master stroke comment as cute hoar type of behaviour. We have a few local lads with nickname of stroke due to this type of behaviour

hognef

rocky wrote: »

Go the whole way and split the year by month, 171-179, 17A-C - third digit is already there...
Cheap(er) SH cars with people upgrading to the new plates.

Given the current format, yes absolutely, though I think it'd be better to go with numbers only, i.e. 170-179. Just make each increment equal ro 36-37 days rather than a calendar month.

Even better, ditch the year (and county, this country is too small), go with 2-3 letters + 3-4 digits. Most of all, make all plates a consistent length! Example AAA0000, AAA1001,..., AAA9999, AAB0001. Higher plate, newer car, but without explicitly showing the year, which only serves as an incentive to keep buying newer cars just for the optics.

Skommando

Eliana Tinkling Nomad wrote: »

I like to be able to tell the year of a car immediately

Why, unless its for sale, what business is it of yours what year car someone drives ?

And why do you need to know the home county of the first owner of someone else's car ?

km991148

Terrontress wrote: »

Some years Dublin has had over 100,000 registrations. That's like a phone number to remember if you need to call the guards. 09 D 117214. Compared to BA 59 RLL. And that's before you have T, TN and TS or L and LK.

The UK system is spot on for identification. Was designed (actually designed - not a random bunch of numbers) to allow identification with only a partial read of a plate.

Granted Ireland may not always have an issue due to far few cars - but it does crop up from time to time in Dublin.

UK also have an area identifier - but I dont know anyone over there that would care about a South Lanarkshire reg being sold in Preston (or any other random county bollocks) - maybe because its not as obvious?

jimmycrackcorm

franer1970 wrote: »

So have a tax on pretentiousness, what's the downside?!

DVLA in UK has made £2.5 billion from its personalised registration service since it started in 1989.

This is why we need someone like Michael O'Leary running the government, he'd be the first to introduce that.

CramCycle

km991148 wrote: »

Granted Ireland may not always have an issue due to far few cars - but it does crop up from time to time in Dublin.

It is in my opinion the only flaw of the current system that the plate numbers seem to be sold sequentially to dealers rather than having it randomised.
With a poor memory most people will have half a number plate plus brand and colour.
Lived in England for years, past the letter years, most would struggle to casually remember a random plate.

WildWater

Personal I think instead or 1 and 2 they should have gone for month and year.

0316 D 1234

Guard, it was a blue corolla March 16 D reg and i think it had a 2 in the number. That would narrow things down a bit.

Plenty of people would still be mad keen to change in January while others would see little difference in 1216 vs 0117.

Skommando

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

This is why we need someone like Michael O'Leary running the government, he'd be the first to introduce that.

until the SIMI make him an offer