Is having no MOT history dodgy?

[rayyan171]

Hi guys

A friend of mine is looking at a car for sale and we did the usual checks and spec checks etc. But, the car has 46k miles on a 57 plate and yet has 4 previous owners. It also isn't showing up on the tax websites and isn't showing its MOT history either.

I'm thinking that this could be down to the car having had a recent plate change but could I be wrong.

The car in question is a 635d with number plate YC57EMJ.

Does anyone know why this is happening

Thanks

[sim72]

rayyan171 said:

Hi guys

A friend of mine is looking at a car for sale and we did the usual checks and spec checks etc. But, the car has 46k miles on a 57 plate and yet has 4 previous owners. It also isn't showing up on the tax websites and isn't showing its MOT history either.

I'm thinking that this could be down to the car having had a recent plate change but could I be wrong.

The car in question is a 635d with number plate YC57EMJ.

Does anyone know why this is happening

Thanks

Yes, will almost certainly have had a personal plate removed and be back on its age-related plate, had a similar issue myself recently.

[rayyan171]

Thanks for the reply, could the plate transfer be causing the lack in history then?

[anonymous-user]

Check it using the private plate it had?

[rayyan171]

Learn2MergeInTurn said:

Check it using the private plate it had?

I did try and check with the private plate too but there's no records on that either, could the info have been lost or something like that during the transfer?

[to3m]

I think it just takes a while to work through the system. When I took my private plate off my car in July, it took a while for the changes to appear. (Not sure how long... I didn't check all that regularly. More than a day or two, but I think less than a month.) So you could be seeing something dodgy, but equally it could just be too soon to say.

(It seemed like private plates weren't handled all that well anyway... at one point, when you looked up my car's MOT history, you got a combination of its history and my previous car's history. (Previous car = same make, same numberplate.) Possibly not too much of a problem, but it looked a bit suspicious, since the 2010 MOT had the mileage as (old car) 130,000 and the 2011 MOT had it as (new car) 48,000...)

[hora]

Personally I'd wait or look at another.

[Ahbefive]

hora said:

Personally I'd wait or look at another.

^This

[MWM3]

Former plates on this car are S77XYY & D3DNK.

Cazana.com is very helpful for this sort of info

[Jack91F]

I bought a car which had just had a plate change.
The info didn't show until it was mot'd again.
Wasn't a big deal as when I viewed it I looked at the paper copies instead.

[sim72]

MWM3 said:

Former plates on this car are S77XYY & D3DNK.

Cazana.com is very helpful for this sort of info

...both of which don't have any MOT history either. The one I mentioned above had all the MOT history attached to the private plate, and I would be surprised if there's a period during the change over when the data is orphaned completely - you would expect it to move straight from one to the other. In that case, agreed with the above poster - wait or look elsewhere. Does the vehicle not have a paper MOT history with it?

[hora]

Even if it was uber cheap I think all those plates/lack of history say AVOID

[rayyan171]

It is very very low mileage for a late 2007 model and has a very large spec (adaptive drive!) so it does look like a good deal and is priced well.

[AMG Merc]

If MOT's were missed then there would be no road tax and is then likely it would have been spotted on ANPR somewhere over time. I'd agree with others here, that whatever its earlier plate, it hasny gone through the system either yet or properly.

[rayyan171]

Jack91F said:

I bought a car which had just had a plate change.
The info didn't show until it was mot'd again.
Wasn't a big deal as when I viewed it I looked at the paper copies instead.

I think what you're saying is true tbh, the car is showing up very accurately on cazana.com and pictures are even showing up showing the exact same car, so it must have been a BMW approved used car. Maybe because it's BMW AUC that the car has this high owners, as our X5 had the same issue, due to the car being cancelled and BMW having to register it under them and then sell as a nearly new car.

I think a viewing is important here.

[HustleRussell]

Ring BMW and run those numbers and the VIN by them then. They'll have records for it.

[hora]

rayyan171 said:

It is very very low mileage for a late 2007 model and has a very large spec (adaptive drive!) so it does look like a good deal and is priced well.

You 'sound' like you are selling the idea of it to us. Are you stretching yourself to get inthis car?

[TJC46]

For what its worth here is my experience.

My vw was registered on a 2010 10 plate. For the last 2 years i have had it on a private plate. During this time if i did an mot history check entering the private reg all the details/history would come up.

I have just this week reverted the car back to its original reg as i am in the process of trying to sell it.

If i do a history check now and enter this original number, the full history again appears.

So to the original OP. Any cars full history should be available whether it's been on a private reg or not.

The exception to this is if the car has been exported at some time, and here is my own example.



I viewed a BMW Z4 in july 2016 which my son wanted to buy. It was a 2008 car with only 26,000 miles on the clock and limited service history.

In the advert the seller declared the car had been stored for a while hence the low mileage

Only other way to verify the mileage was an mot history check.

We did this and its first mot in 2011 was showing, then nothing till its last mot in 2016. So 5 missing years.

I had tried to get some history of this vehicle from the DVLA but as i wasnt the registered keeper, they would not disclose anything.

We went to view the car as it was only 20 miles or so away,and when i questioned the seller as to the lack of mot history, he came clean and admitted that the previous owner had stored the car for 2 years, and then exported it to the Isle of man.

This is where the seller had purchased it from.

They do not have an mot inspection in the Isle of man so again no history to verify the mileage.

WE WALKED AWAY !

[rayyan171]

hora said:

You 'sound' like you are selling the idea of it to us. Are you stretching yourself to get inthis car?

For the same price for the car, you could get your hands on a late 2009 'edition sport' model with the better bonnet and different styling cues, or even a 90k miles 2010 model with the late CIC iDrive system in white. However, the spec on this car is very big and he wouldn't be too bothered if the car is a bit older if it does have a genuine low mileage on the car and the car has a very large spec that will trump getting a newer car with lower spec. It does have heads-up display and adaptive drive on top of other things too, so it does seem reasonably priced.

[ivorbigun]

We bought a Megane from Northern Ireland (originally from mainland), kept the NI plate, and that only has MOT history from after we bought it and tested in England. I've never checked the original UK numberplate history - we've had it 4 years and 60k miles, so not much point now. But might be worth asking about any NI or Isle of Man history.