UK personalised registration numbers

CiniO · 14-11-2016 12:12AM #1

Does anyone know how they actually work?

Can you buy them of other people, order them of DVLA or something?
Can you choose reg with your own text, numbers, etc? F.e. could I choose reg CINIO or am I limited only to certain options, combinations, etc?

Any info appreciated

Charles Babbage · 14-11-2016 12:18AM

There is an active market in existing numbers. both from the DVLA and private sellers https://www.plates4less.co.uk/ https://www.carreg.co.uk/
Or new ones from the DVLA http://dvlaregistrations.direct.gov.uk/

Alas C1 NIO may not be available as they tend not to use the I!
And CIN 10 is an Irish one (Wicklow).

colm_mcm · 14-11-2016 12:24AM

CiniO wrote: »

Does anyone know how they actually work?

Can you buy them of other people, order them of DVLA or something?
Can you choose reg with your own text, numbers, etc? F.e. could I choose reg CINIO or am I limited only to certain options, combinations, etc?

Any info appreciated

There are a few rules. Biggest one is you can't try and make a car look newer than it is. Reg has to be older than your car.

The way the old system worked in the uk was
A 123 ABC where the 123 could be anything between 1 and 3 digits.
Older ones had the format ABC 123 A

So for Cinio, you'd go C 1 NIO. Or CIN 10. (Neither of these are available!)

Now there might have been restrictions on certain letters not being allowed, Can't remember.

The newer system is AB 12 ABC

Then you have Northern Ireland plates which are usually 3 letters then numbers.

Wikipedia would probably have all this!

Marcusm · 14-11-2016 11:20AM

To add to this, you can also reserve them in advance. At one stage I was going to buy MA12CUS which I could reserve, I think, 18 months in advance. I realised it was pretentious and didn't. It's never been issued.

jca · 14-11-2016 11:26AM

Charles Babbage wrote: »

There is an active market in existing numbers. both from the DVLA and private sellers https://www.plates4less.co.uk/ https://www.carreg.co.uk/
Or new ones from the DVLA http://dvlaregistrations.direct.gov.uk/

Alas C1 NIO may not be available as they tend not to use the I!
And CIN 10 is an Irish one (Wicklow).

Kerry actually. NI is Wicklow
Ignoring the C1, NIO is Irish too, Kildare.

jca · 14-11-2016 11:33AM

colm_mcm wrote: »

There are a few rules. Biggest one is you can't try and make a car look newer than it is. Reg has to be older than your car.

The way the old system worked in the uk was
A 123 ABC where the 123 could be anything between 1 and 3 digits.
Older ones had the format ABC 123 A

So for Cinio, you'd go C 1 NIO. Or CIN 10. (Neither of these are available!)

Now there might have been restrictions on certain letters not being allowed, Can't remember.

The newer system is AB 12 ABC

Then you have Northern Ireland plates which are usually 3 letters then numbers.

Wikipedia would probably have all this!

You'd be better going to Wikipedia CiniO. There isn't much point in buying a UK plate as you can't use it here.

colm_mcm · 14-11-2016 02:00PM

He's half thinking of moving there AFAIK

xabi · 14-11-2016 02:41PM

I think PEN 15 is still available ;-)

UK personalised registration numbers

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