Can I find out the vehicle history for a personalised plate?

Forums › Off topic › Can I find out the vehicle history for a personalised plate?

dafman

3791 posts

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#306298 11-Jul-2023 14:10

Reason I ask is I am looking to buy a car, privately, that has been re-registered - reason for registration given by seller is that the car's original registration was cancelled as he decided to put his personalised plate on the vehicle. The vehicle was subsequently re-registered when he moved his personalised plate to a new vehicle

ie, the history according to seller is: (1) Original registration (2) Personalised plate (3) new registration

However, when I search on the plates, I only get the (1) original registration, replaced by (3) new registration

Is there any way I can verify the seller's account? For example, is there a register for personalised plates which shows their movements?

I did ask the seller if he kept the original paperwork from the initial deregistration, but he did not.

bigreddog

160 posts

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#3102742 11-Jul-2023 14:18

www.carjam.co.nz

If you put in the current plate (or the previous plates or VIN) and scroll down there is a section called Plates History - this shows the plates, but you have to pay for the date(s) of the changes

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dafman

3791 posts

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#3102748 11-Jul-2023 14:45

bigreddog:

www.carjam.co.nz

If you put in the current plate (or the previous plates or VIN) and scroll down there is a section called Plates History - this shows the plates, but you have to pay for the date(s) of the changes

PERFECT - thanks. carjam shows the full plate history, including dates - for free.

Seller's story stacks up.

Wheelbarrow01

1442 posts

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Chorus

#3102941 11-Jul-2023 22:46

dafman:

bigreddog:

www.carjam.co.nz

If you put in the current plate (or the previous plates or VIN) and scroll down there is a section called Plates History - this shows the plates, but you have to pay for the date(s) of the changes

PERFECT - thanks. carjam shows the full plate history, including dates - for free.

Seller's story stacks up.

Does it stack up though? You don't need to cancel the actual registration of a car to put a personalised plate on it, or to remove it - it's simply a plate change, and the car's registration "in the system" remains current and continuous the whole time. I've added and removed a number of personalised plates on my vehicles over many years and none of their registrations were ever cancelled/reregistered during that process.

Surely there must have been another reason for the vehicle being deregistered, (twice by the sound of it).

EDIT - here's a screenshot of the Carjam report for one of my vehicles. As you can see, my personalised plate (IMU...) has been on and off a couple of times, but my First Registration Date and Last Registration Date (NZ) are the same date -because changing plates does not affect the registration status:

hsvhel

1092 posts

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#3103052 12-Jul-2023 09:56

This doesn't pass the sniff test for just a plate change?

Re-reg is either a lapse or and enforced requirement from a cancellation

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mudguard

1726 posts

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#3103077 12-Jul-2023 11:06

Yeah I'd be wary about a car being deregistered in the first place

bigreddog

160 posts

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#3103096 12-Jul-2023 11:33

Dafman - was the vehicle actually deregistered, or do you just mean the old number plate was replaced with the personalised plate which was then replaced with a subsequent new number plate?

Deregistered for vehicles normally means that the vehicle has been totally removed from the NZTA Motor Vehicle Register (Cancelling your registration | Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency (nzta.govt.nz) and is done when a vehicle is:

destroyed (or becomes permanently useless)
permanently taken off the road
permanently removed from New Zealand
written off by an insurer
significantly modified.

The process to get a deregistered vehicle back on the road is normally a bit of a major exercise and I'd be very wary of any vehicle that has been deregistered and then reregistered - quite different to just having the number plates changed.

neb

8906 posts

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#3103208 12-Jul-2023 13:45

Another reason for deregistering a car that I've run into was because it was tied up in legal proceedings and sat in storage while the dispute played out, which took long enough that paying registration fees and whatnot wasn't worth it. Also having it deregistered meant it couldn't (legally) be used by any party before the dispute was resolved.

mudguard

1726 posts

Uber Geek

#3103230 12-Jul-2023 14:54

neb: Another reason for deregistering a car that I've run into was because it was tied up in legal proceedings and sat in storage while the dispute played out, which took long enough that paying registration fees and whatnot wasn't worth it. Also having it deregistered meant it couldn't (legally) be used by any party before the dispute was resolved.

That would seem pretty extreme. Is that instead of putting the registration on hold? Which is free.

neb

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#3103235 12-Jul-2023 15:01

mudguard:
That would seem pretty extreme. Is that instead of putting the registration on hold? Which is free.

Ah, was probably that, I only heard about it second-hand.

Daynger

384 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3103758 13-Jul-2023 18:14

Is there a way to find cars that used to have a plate?

My Pplate i have has been on my current car and another in the past, i would like to see if my old car is about, any way to do that?

Thanks

Wheelbarrow01

1442 posts

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Chorus

#3103803 13-Jul-2023 22:48

Daynger:

Is there a way to find cars that used to have a plate?

My Pplate i have has been on my current car and another in the past, i would like to see if my old car is about, any way to do that?

Thanks

Not unless you have retained any old paperwork showing the VIN number (which can also be searched in Carjam), or if you remember any of the other plate numbers that have ever been on the car (excluding reused personalised plates)