Dealers don't want to do this anymore. It is crazy really. I had to put it on retention and then send them the form to assign to the car.

 

This will have me nervous, I will be doing the same with my plates soon, hope I won't get any problems with the DVLA.

 

This will have me nervous, I will be doing the same with my plates soon, hope I won't get any problems with the DVLA.

View attachment 45212

Start the ball rolling earlier on, save hassle come swapping time.

 

The dealers hate dealing with it for some reason. When my Mum changed her car last year she had to put her private plate on retention before she traded in and they then put her plate on the new car as they registered it

 

Yeah that's the way it works. The plate goes on retention first then onto the new vehicle. The only issue I have had is when the current cars road tax has expired, then it cannot be taken off and put on retention. The car must then be taxed and will need a couple of days before the online systems pulls the details in.

 

Issue is that you're supposed to then get plates made up for the new reg.

I told VW that they could do it as mine was only a week beforehand.

 

I did mine 2 weeks ago, it took about 2 minutes online, and I had the retention certificate 3 days later. When you do it you get the certificate number instantly.

Very easy.

 

Whats this rubbish then? My dealer sorted out the plate in a week. They already had the plate on the car before I collected and the same plate was on the car I tradedin which they removed

Basically, the dealers you're using are just bone idle or have no clue about what they're doing.

 

I had it happen to me when I changed my car last year. I was sat with the dealer as they tried to do it online, and despite owning the plate for many years and with nothing unusual about its history, the on-line system rejected it. It was certainly nothing to do with the dealer, they are a main BMW dealership and have considerable experience with private registration transfers. I don't know if it is true but I was told that a random number of applications are rejected on line.
Mine was subsequently sent to the DVLA the usual way and the transfer went through with no problem within about a week, so I would not be unduly worried.
I think in future, I will put it on retention myself a short while before I intend to swap the car.

 

The dvla are having major issues with the on line systems lately, could be we why some dealers are staying away from doing this work

 

It's been pretty good recently, I had 2 new keepers that I couldn't do on Monday but they went through fine today.

Plate retention is easy, you have to do it between 8 and 6 and have the current v5 to hand. The car must have tax and mot in place otherwise you cannot transfer it online.

We have no issues in doing it, however in order for the plate to transfer onto the new car it must be taxed and be in the new keepers name - I'm not sure if it's the same for new cars though. From our perspective you have to register a car in a new name without being paid for the car, there is then a 5 day delay while the v5 comes through then allow another week for collection and payout. For a small dealer that means you have cash tied up in a car for 2 weeks, it's sold and you cannot buy new stock until the money has cleared. You also have the issue of another owner and plate on a car that might fall through.

Just out of interest if you wanted a plate transferring and were asked for full payment before collecting the car would you agree to it ?

 

I've just done mine, putting the old plate back on the vehicle, the new v5 has turned up 3 days later . but should I get a new retention cert or not?

I dread calling dvla as normally you are in a queue for an age..

 

I was sat with the fella at the garage who tried the online retention system, computer just said no! I was thinking of retaining the wife's plate before we started looking at new cars but didn't want to pay the admin fees from the insurance company. Anyway shouldn't be too long before the documents arrive through the post, they were sent off on Monday.

When the transfer is completed I will email the DVLA to find out why the online system would not work.

 

...but didn't want to pay the admin fees from the insurance company.

When I was changing my car and had to call the insurance company to inform them the registration number was changed but nothing else they didn't charge me.

EDIT: @Steve - Typically these days brand new cars are zero tax for first year so that shouldn't be an issue.

 

You still have to tax them, it's the fact the v5 must be in the new owners name

 

For us it's more of the delay in being paid out, but yes you can take a non refundable deposit.

 

For used the v5 goes to the new owner we just ask them to give us the document reference number when it arrives, we can then add the plate to the car online but by ticking the dealer box it allows us to do it as a third party.

 

Older plates can't be done online. I had a retention renewal certificate late last year for a plate I'd put on retention the year before and had to do it by post.

Typical that the dvla have managed to mess it up and not be able to do everything online at once...

 

Done another today, it wouldn't go through but it gave a direct number and a shortcut code. Straight through, spoke to a human, they did something behind the scenes and I tried again while they waited and it went straight through