Anyone had much investment success with a licence plate?

Rudd_2002 said:
iv been thinking of a plate for a while now, to buy one from the DVLA do you just purchase it then when the docs come can you just go and get a plate made up and stick it straight on?
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Once you have the certificate through, you head to the DVLA office with your V5 and they assign it to the vehicle / issue you a new tax disc with the new registration. You can then get plates made and put on the car. If DVLA office is too far / inconvenient, you can post it off to them but have to wait for the documents to come back before you can get the plates made. It's lots of very old fashioned and overpriced paper-in-the-post style admin...
 
i know, you would think that in in a time of electronics they would be able to just do it there and then, or even fill in the stuff yourself and speed the process up.


so just out of curiousity, say i did have to send the tax disc away does that mean you cant drive the car? you might get stopped for not displaying it or watever
 
Rudd_2002 said:
i know, you would think that in in a time of electronics they would be able to just do it there and then, or even fill in the stuff yourself and speed the process up.


so just out of curiousity, say i did have to send the tax disc away does that mean you cant drive the car? you might get stopped for not displaying it or watever
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Well two things Rudd - firstly if you want to buy a plate from the DVLA you need to use their website, not the local office...as a result you may find they do a lot of the donkey work included, maybe someone who's used DVLA can comment (I bought mine from resellers).

Secondly, you don't send your old tax disc off until they send your new one - theres no downtime.

technically I think its still an offence not to display a disc, but you would probably escape prosecution if, say, you'd taxed a car on the 3rd of the month after the old one expired and were stopped driving it while waiting for the disc to arrive in the post. Obviously the police can check databases now so its not the issue it used to be with the ubiquitious "tax in the post" sticker.... :lol:
 
bought one that ends with wul, had it on both my bmw's, paid about £800 with tranfer fees etc about two years ago.

wullie....
 
wulliet said:
bought one that ends with wul, had it on both my bmw's, paid about £800 with tranfer fees etc about two years ago.

wullie....
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come on, whats the first part?

is it M3, N1
 
Go to a DVLA auction, there's one in a couple of weeks time in Peterborough and see what people are buying. There's a very healthy market for the better plates, you can also look at previous prices on the DVLA auction website, they general seem to get dearer over time.
Oh and if your gonna stick a decent amount of money in a plate buy one that your happy to own, not just an investment.
 
I have a couple of plates. My only advive is not to use a "Middleman" company such as NewReg etc..
They have loads of hidden costs and even a premium rate telephone number. They stung me when I got one for my girlfriend.
The DVLA website is the best option or the auctions.

Mine are just
alexman said:
the usual vanity crap with initals which doesnt actually spell anything
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however....
 
I have a few plates which I buy from DVLA and sell through dealers (about 2 per year).
Hard to make any real money
eg V12 LUX bought for £399 sold for £600
There are lots of nice BMW ones still with DVLA if you go down the BWM route
The M set eg M14 ABC and S set eg S14 ABC are the best value ones to go for
I bought S1 AGT for £399 six months ago
The 1 plates are the best if you can find the right one for you
Ignore the silly ebay prices (cherished numbers) few actually sell for any serious money
Examples of what I was looking at 6 months ago at DVLA include
M14 BWM, M14 OMY, S1 XLO, S1 XRE, S4 UAV, S11 GTX, S111 VLR, WH04 ZZZ
 
to me, initials are better than something that relates to a car, i've had my plates probably in excess of 10 years, i move them to each new car

if i had bought plates for the car then i would lose them

and i've not bought mine to make money
 
When I was 18 I purchased a knackered old Puch scooter for £15 from a bloke in our street.

The number was 911 and three letters. Woo woo! ££££££££££££!

(early entrepreneur!) :D
 
I've had a few plates - some more successful than others.

I tried to buy M3 GTS a few years ago but it did not work out. I ended up with M3 GTK which in the end reverted back to the DVLA because I forgot to pay the annual fee. Wasted £300 or so.

V10 MPH was a bit more successful for me. I planned on buying an M5 when they first came out but could not quite stretch to it. Managed to make about a grand on that.

Currently trying to sell S100 CRR. I bought it when I was not thinking straight. The idea was to fit it to the BMW S1000RR. S100 ORR was not available. But I still hope to make a bit on it.

My most recent reg purchase was G-KLAW - for my Eagle. But I don't plan on selling that for a fair while.
 
Oh and then there was R1 NUR - which I still have. It has been on 5 motorbikes and is now on my girlfriends Renault R26.R.

It works for me because the reg has been part of my life for so long and being an ex NURburgring fanatic the plate looks great on the Renault - the fastest FWD production car round the Ring. Bit convoluted I know but hey ho!
 
I bought my first cherished plate 4 months ago for £244 off the DVLA website. I got very different reviews from it. My parents absolutely hate it and think its chavy, where as some friends think it's great.

It says, K19VN H

Anyone fancy a guess what my name is??
 
bump!

Considering a personalised plate to help de-age my 56 coupe. I think I'd almost deliberately avoid anything that looks like a name just so its anonymous and to avoid accusations of vanity.

Rudd, I know you have real reasons behind the letters, but I immediately see R33 (Skyline) and Rud = Rude. I can see you being able to sell that on to a skyline enthusast for decent money :)
 
sixspeed said:
I paid £699 for UR 02 SLO back in December 2001..... I won't ever sell it, but I've had some offers much, much higher...
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You know I mentioned to you UR 02 EZE...

A colleague of mine does this 'investing in plates'. While he seems to have had a bit of luck (3k or 4k IIRC) with V1O BM when the M5 came out, from what I can see he just spends a lot on retentions each year.

Currently he has

UR 02 EZE

V6RYN (Veyron, ish with a screw in the right place on the 6)

T8YME (Try me, again it needs a screw in the 8 )

For the new M Benz: SL5 8CYL (SLS 8CYL) and SL5 1CON (SLS ICON)

I think he might have some luck with the last two when the SLS comes out.

When I was looking at the SLK 55 I was going to get V8 YAY (V8, Yay!) which is available and not too expensive either.
 
i just put plates on my new golf

not bought as an investment, just a way to hide car age
 
I bought S555 DOO years ago thinking a would make a tidy profit from a Scooby owner, but only got my money back.
 
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