Trading in car.

[Lawrence-gzed9]

I have a private plate on my car and at this moment I am thinking about trading my car in. The garage were the newer car is at is some distance from me. Is it possible to drive there and change the private plate onto the newer car online and drive back the same day? Thanks for looking

[335dTot]

I thought your current car would have to go back to its original registration before trade in & your private reg went on retention, trade in, get new car & then transfer private reg to new car.

[Lawrence-gzed9]

It does but I’m led to believe that you can take your private reg online.

[cuprabob]

Yes, you can take your plate off online however that triggers a new V5 being sent to you. Speak to the dealer to see if they are happy to wait for the new V5 to be handed in a week or so later

Once you receive the Retention Certificate you can assign that to your new car.

[Lawrence-gzed9]

Thanks. That what I thought would happen.

[Mexman]

Private plate=pain in the arse for dealer.

[335dTot]

I thought your current car would have to go back to its original registration before trade in & your private reg went on retention, trade in, get new car & then transfer private reg to new car.

[river_rat]

I traded my old car with BMW dealer with private plate on it - I had applied online for it to be put on retention but didn't actually have the new V5 in time - they just asked me to post it to them as soon as it arrived.

No problem, but some dealers might not want the potential hassle of the V5 not being sent to them, etc?

[chrisch77]

My recent experience is that you’ll need to do the reg transfer long before you take the car to the dealer to trade it. I sold privately unexpectedly quickly and tried to do the reg transfer and new owner at the same time (by post) but it turned into a bit of a mess because my buyer didn’t retax the car before the DVLA received the documents in the post, so they sent all the doc back to me and I had to reapply after the new owner re taxed the car.

For some stupid reason you can only do the online registration transfer if the car has been taxed (maybe and/or SORNd) continuously for the last 5 years, so if your car has been ‘in the trade’ at any point in the last 5 years the online portal won’t let you do it that way.

If I were you I would get on with the reg transfer ASAP if you are committed to disposing of the car. If you are able to do it online then you might be lucky and get the new V5 back within a few working days. If you have to visit a dealer to discuss trade in in the meantime then it would be worth having a scan/photocopy of the V5 and reg transfer form with you.

Chris