Keep Irish plate or swap for English reg

[aea730]

I’m buying a used bike from NI. The bike has lived in NI since new in 1991 so has been on its original Irish plate since then. When I register it in my name over here I’m told DVLA will give me the option of having an age related plate allocated to it.

I quite like the Irish plate and it adds a bit of novelty to it over here but are there any downsides to keeping the original plate or indeed benefits to having a conventional prefix type plate.

Any experiences or thoughts would be appreciated

[stupidbutkeen]

It is not a 'Irish' plate... A Irish plate would need to be changed.
A Northern Ireland plate is fine to stay on your car on the mainland.

Now thats out of the way the plate you have is just better.
For the vain it makes it hard to tell the age of your bike.
For the dyslexic it is easier to remember
Plus you will look like a tourist and be helped quicker when you break down

[Rubin215]

A Scottish friend who lives in NI tells the tale of holidaying in the west of Scotland with their NI registered car.
Travelling from campsite to campsite he wondered why so many people wanted to know what football team he supported and were then surprised when he said 'Aberdeen' (he's from Forfar originally).

In NI you support Celtic if you're catholic and Rangers if you're protestant.
These things are only really important in NI and the west of Scotland...

[Biker 1]

I'd keep the NI plate for novelty.
Incidentally, I saw a car the other day with Jersey plates on it - does the same apply in that you can keep the plates if you were to bring it to mainland UK permanently?

[black-k1]

Biker 1 said:

I'd keep the NI plate for novelty.
Incidentally, I saw a car the other day with Jersey plates on it - does the same apply in that you can keep the plates if you were to bring it to mainland UK permanently?

I'm not 100% sure but I don't think so.

I know the car hire companies change the plates of channel island cars when they bring them back to GB to sell them.

[Dave2t]

I've a NI reg on my bike, I guess whoever imported it in the dim distant past didn't bother to get it changed. It's never presented any issues for me.

[moanthebairns]

Rubin215 said:

A Scottish friend who lives in NI tells the tale of holidaying in the west of Scotland with their NI registered car.
Travelling from campsite to campsite he wondered why so many people wanted to know what football team he supported and
were then surprised when he said 'Aberdeen' (he's from Forfar originally).

In NI you support Celtic if you're catholic and Rangers if you're protestant.
These things are only really important in NI and the west of Scotland...

I would be too, Station Park is far closer than Pittodrie, glory hunter.

[Prof Prolapse]

No there's no downsides. Not going into politics, but it's just considered a UK plate, loads of people have them.

I have to disagree with any political/religious/football affiliation in West of Scotland as well. I've been here fourteen years, and yes, in a particularly impoverished areas racial biggotry is an issue, as it is everywhere in the UK, (particularly NI), but most of the schemie fkers wouldn't know what an NI number plate was.

It's not an issue.

[moto_traxport]

black-k1 said:

Biker 1 said:

I'd keep the NI plate for novelty.
Incidentally, I saw a car the other day with Jersey plates on it - does the same apply in that you can keep the plates if you were to bring it to mainland UK permanently?

I'm not 100% sure but I don't think so.

I know the car hire companies change the plates of channel island cars when they bring them back to GB to sell them.

Definitely have to change Channel Island plates when moving vehicles permanently to the mainland.

You'll need to pay VAT (and possibly other taxes?) on them as well.

Northern Ireland is same as rest of UK, their plates are just a geographical identifier of 1st place of registration. Personally I'd take it off for fear of being identified as sad & shallow.

[ilovequo]

Why would it identify you as sad and shallow?

[JimbobVFR]

ilovequo said:

Why would it identify you as sad and shallow?

As long as the letters are CAZ, NAZ or DAZ it won't. Some NI plates are bought be cheap skates as a"private plate"
My mate has a car originally registered in NI with a completely innocuous NI plate and has been accused of having a private plate, although that isn't remotely true.

[aea730]

Thanks guys, I knew there would be some comedy outcome
I might just change my name to Nigel and call it a personal plate

[graham22]

OP - depending how many digits are on the plate, you may be able to make a slightly smaller legal number plate, especially if one of the letters is an 'I'.

I bought a couple of cheapies years ago for this reason - bit like people asking dealers, in the past, for registrations with just 2 numbers in them so they could use smaller but legal plates.

Since then they've become 'my plates', they don't mean anything but to me, look better than full size plates when fitted with tail tidy etc.

Don't care if others think I'm sad or shallow:

Edited by graham22 on Friday 19th January 10:09