Checking vehicle tax and NCT status etc. from public databases

BrianD3 · 24-08-2021 12:39pm #1

Many people would like to know if a car they used to own has survived or what happened to it. This info is either very difficult if not impossible to get legally (thanks to data protection etc.) and anyway, the vast majority of cars over about 15-20 years old are scrapped. Some deductions about whether a car has survived or not can be made from publicly available/free info. I just had a idea of starting a thread in this to sum up what I know or think I know.

1) Cartell.ie, mywheels.ie, motorcheck.ie, all use the same database. If a reg comes up as "found" when entered, the vehicle was entered in the national vehicle database post computerisation in 1993. It may have been taxed, changed ownership or been officially scrapped in 1993 or later. If it is not found then there was no activity associated with it after 1993 so almost certainly scrapped. If it is found, then there is the option of paying for a check which will say when it was last taxed.

https://www.mywheels.ie/

2) An alternative to paying for the check is to use the adverts.ie mobile app to pretend to sell the car without actually placing the ad.. Enter the reg and the tax expiry date will come up automatically. I think this only works for new format registrations i.e. 1987 and later.

Just because a car comes up as found and taxed doesn't guarantee that the car itself has survived, someone may have used its logbook and reg details to "ring" another vehicle so that they can get vintage tax and VRT for a different vehicle.

3) The NCT website allows NCTs to be verified by entering a reg.

https://www.ncts.ie/1104/

Some regs will come up as not found, Not sure what puts a car into the found or not found status. From the cars our family has owned

1990 car last taxed in 1995 - found on cartell.ie, not found on NCT website

1993 car last taxed in 2000 - found on cartell.ie, also found on NCT website. NCT expiry date is "not applicable" so it never passed the test (may possibly have been tested and failed and was then scrapped)

If a car is over 40 years old it does not need an NCT but it can be done voluntarily AFAIK. if it was tested before it reached 40 and then not tested after that I assume that it would be found in the database and the expiry date of its last NCT would appear.

4) Somewhat related, the below link gives stats on makes and models that have been NCT'd each year. Plenty of car models are "extinct" or close to it in Ireland. E.g. number of Fiat Ritmos (produced 1979-1988) tested in 2019 and 2020 (2 year NCT for vehicles this age) is zero. There might be some survivors that owners didn't bother NCTing or were over 40 years old or are classified as "Fiat Other". But it is safe to say that Ritmos are at best, near extinct. Although there are probably a small number waiting to be discovered in barns and garages, maybe sitting there since before 1993 and might be found and resurrected at some point.

https://www.rsa.ie/RSA/Your-Vehicle/Your-Vehicle-/NCT-Statistics-/?fbclid=IwAR0zw8kHaEc4NQkgNRRSnztUsulAO0KBDpKRcWcB-zfBkgGx8CUSKD37yyY

Any comments or corrections?

w124man · 24-08-2021 9:18pm

I found my first W124 that I sold in 1996. I used the NCT website to see if it was still 'alive'. Then I 'booked' a test and the nearest NCT center came up so that gave me an idea what part of the country it was in. Thankfully it was in a small town in west Cork so it was easy to find by asking in local garages and Google maps! Not many red Mercedes estates in West Cork! I still cant find my Mk1 Mars Red Jetta, 28 WZL, last seen in Abbeyshrule.

BrianD3 · 24-08-2021 10:01pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117799270#Comment_117799270

Great detective work there! I wasn't aware of that NCT trick. Just tried it with two of our cars which were owned from new and traded in years ago. Suggested NCT centres were in different counties than the cars were originally registered in, Conclusion is that the cars' most recent owners lived in those other counties.

Also. I seem to remember that it was possible to "stalk" an owner in the unlikely event that they had made an NCT booking as the system would show time, date and centre. I must try to stalk myself next time I make a booking.

Itineoman · 04-09-2021 12:57am

Oh My. OP You've made me find another way of wasting lot of time on th'internet.. Spent hours trying to recall old reg. numbers that I thought i'd remember forever. Can't remember for the life of me the Peugot 405 from 1990, Carina GLSI that I got in 1996, The Laguna I got new in 1997, The Mitsubishi Carisma, new again in 1998 and a mistake - it was the weird petrol injection thingy that was crap. Then the 1999 Audi A4 Redeye that I paid a fortune for in 2001. I know the 2006 Passat 140 Diesel Sport that I brought in from the UK is missing from action and that leaves me with the present wagon. I had a whole other heap of wrecks dating back to the late 1970s when I started driving so I'm half glad they aren't in the picture. However I can remember all those reg numbers perfectly ( along with all the neighbours cars since 1971) .

Well done and thanks.

BrianD3 · 05-09-2021 5:41pm

Another thing - if you enter a reg in the NCT system and it gives a "vehicle unavailable" message, that seems to mean that the car has been officially scrapped.

However if the car was officially scrapped before the introduction of the NCT, it might give a "not found" message. Not sure though.

hoodie6029 · 21-11-2021 11:40pm

Great thread Brian.👍️

One other place is the annual bulletin of motor stats. You don’t get model specific data but you can glean a lot from it. I’ve posted about it a couple of times on the main forum.

Here is this year’s one https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/aa05b-irish-bulletin-of-vehicle-and-driver-statistics-2020/

All car info is kept in the National Vehicle and Driver file database run by the RSA. It has all the details of every vehicle, who it is registered to, everyone with a driving licence and their details. Needless to say, they are very wary of a data breach or hack. It would effectively give you the details of almost every adult in the country and probably most of the companies in the country too.

They only give very limited access to insurers, cartell etc. And they have to jump through major hoops to get it.

As much as I would love to have a ‘how many left?’ For Ireland, the site would never pay for the cost of getting the access. And after the HSE hack, I doubt they’d ever give access now.

We’ll have to stick with the hacks for now.

Atlantic Dawn · 21-11-2021 11:50pm

Interesting, there's a Tesla registered in every single county of the country.

Checking vehicle tax and NCT status etc. from public databases

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