DVLA date of first reg and year of manufacture - Years apart

DVLA date of first reg and year of manufacture - Years apart

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Discussion

milfordkong

Original Poster:

1,249 posts

239 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
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Doing some checks on a used car and the date of first registration according to the DVLA is 4 years later than the car's date of manufacture - I thought this must mean it's an import but a check on that suggests that is not the case - It seems unlikely it would sit in a showroom unregistered for 4 years so it's a little confusing.

Anybody had any experience of this sort of situation? - Any idea what else could have caused this?


Lagom

560 posts

69 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
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Not uncommon, although 4 years is a little extreme. There was a case of a Vx (or was it Renault) main dealer who kept a car in storage just so they could register on a specific year-related plate.

It takes a while to rotate stock when you have so many laying around.


milfordkong

Original Poster:

1,249 posts

239 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
quotequote all
Lagom said:
It takes a while to rotate stock when you have so many laying around.
Not sure that's relevant this case - Perhaps should have provided more context, this is a 90s car, it was manufactured in 1995 and the first registration date is showing as 1999...

Dog Star

16,462 posts

175 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
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I bought a Yamaha R1 - a 2007 model. Brand "new", zero miles, new warranty etc in March 2011 on an 11 plate. So things can and do sit in dealers for years.

InitialDave

12,220 posts

126 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
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What is it?


Butter Face

31,611 posts

167 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
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Lagom said:
It takes a while to rotate stock when you have so many laying around.

Not really.

There's maybe 5000 or so cars there (they normally have a max capacity of around 4500 cars) and the UK (normally) registers around 2m cars a year so that entire place gets cleared and restocked many times per year in all likelyhoods.

Evercross

6,281 posts

71 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
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milfordkong said:
Not sure that's relevant this case - Perhaps should have provided more context, this is a 90s car, it was manufactured in 1995 and the first registration date is showing as 1999...
A former girlfriend of mine had a car that had been originally sold new on the channel islands and then been sold in the UK second-hand and it showed up exactly as above. Not classed as an import as still a UK car but channel island registration numbers are not allowed to be used on the mainland so the V5 showed it as having a first registration date that matched the allocation of the standard number.

Dogwatch

6,273 posts

229 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
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Dog Star said:
So things can and do sit in dealers for years.
And airfields too, before getting to a dealers so not always cosy and dry in a showroom. Much bigger problem when rust prevention wasn't what it is today.

Its been going on for years.

Riley Blue

21,618 posts

233 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
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milfordkong said:
Lagom said:
It takes a while to rotate stock when you have so many laying around.
Not sure that's relevant this case - Perhaps should have provided more context, this is a 90s car, it was manufactured in 1995 and the first registration date is showing as 1999...
I once owned a '90s Mercedes that had spent the first few years of its life on Jersey. It was registered with the DVLA several years later when it arrived on the mainland so not uncommon.

milfordkong

Original Poster:

1,249 posts

239 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
quotequote all
Riley Blue said:
I once owned a '90s Mercedes that had spent the first few years of its life on Jersey. It was registered with the DVLA several years later when it arrived on the mainland so not uncommon.
Ah ok - Thank you (and to the earlier poster who mentioned the channel islands) - This could well be the case then. Any way at all to check on this? the current owner is unaware of the car's history and a little flippant perhaps due to it coming from a larger collection but i'd like to know.

droopsnoot

12,630 posts

249 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
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Could it have had a private plate (or just a different plate) on for the first few years? I believe the date refers to when this plate was applied to the car - I know a chap with a Viva HA that had the original registration removed, and I think his V5 shows it was first registered sometime in the mid 1980s. Similar scenario to it being imported, really.

milfordkong

Original Poster:

1,249 posts

239 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
quotequote all
droopsnoot said:
Could it have had a private plate (or just a different plate) on for the first few years? I believe the date refers to when this plate was applied to the car - I know a chap with a Viva HA that had the original registration removed, and I think his V5 shows it was first registered sometime in the mid 1980s. Similar scenario to it being imported, really.
Another potential - Interesting the government MOT check states the date registered as 1995 - The plot thickens.

dellings4k

2 posts

10 months

Wednesday 8th May
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I'm facing this same issue. Car was manufactured in 2011 and had first MOT in 2014 so it's not loke the car has remained in the showroom. There was a change to private plate in 2018 and back to the original plate in 2023. I can't just figure out why the date of first issue of certitificate is 2021. The car has 4 total keepers and the logbook has only been issue twice, 2021 and 2023. This bothers me a lot.