am I right to be concerned about number of reg plates?

[Dapple]

looking to buy a car (BMW M5) on Thursday (£45k+) car is a private sale but advertised by a reputable dealer on the sellers behalf. It is priced about £500 over what the seller has been offered as a part-x and about £2500 lower than I would pay at a main dealer.

the seller checks out OK as does the dealer that is advertising the car on his behalf, have looked into the sellers private affairs and his business thoroughly and seems to be a legit businessman. (address checks out as having lived there for many years etc...)

Did a HPi check on the car and all is good, apart from the number of reg plates the car has had, its an 18 month old car with 1 previous keeper that was supplied to the current owner by BMW.

It seems that the car has had 4 plates on it, one was fitted on the date of registration then 3 more as below:

11/5/12 - car first registered with private plate - car bought for £90k but plate is now on a 1998 VW Golf
16/7/12 - new private plate fitted - now fitted onto a 2013 BMW M5
21/4/13 - 'standard' looking plate fitted (current owner bought it on this plate)
31/5/13 - current owner fitted his private plate that is still currenly fitted

all seems to add up, but why would the first owner buy a £90k+ car, fit 2 private plates in the space of 2 months and then sell the car on to a main dealer 1 year later purchase at a loss of around £30k, only to buy the same car again for £90k ???

anything dubious or is it a case of a first owner with more sense than money?

[Iang84]

Could be any number of reasons
Buy and have old private plate put on at first registration, then someone offered silly money for the original private plate or he found a more appropriate plate for the car, then was again offered silly money for the new plate and so on

It is a bit unusual but not unheard of my mates car had 3 different plates in the space of a year as the previous owner ended up with a medical problem which stopped him from driving
previous owner bought on standard plate changed to private plate medical problem arose so he sold to my mate who had a normal plate put back on as previous owner wanted to give the private plate to his son

[TooMany2cvs]

Dapple said:

anything dubious or is it a case of a first owner with more sense than money?

Can't see anything particularly dubious there, but assuming you've seen the V5C, you've seen the previous keeper's details - write to them and ask.

[TA14]

TooMany2cvs said:

Dapple said:

anything dubious or is it a case of a first owner with more sense than money?

Can't see anything particularly dubious there, but assuming you've seen the V5C, you've seen the previous keeper's details - write to them and ask.

also there's no reason to suggest the OP's alternative. What % of your income do you spend on cars? Maybe the first owner spends a much lower % and can still afford a new M5 every few months. If it weren't for people like him there wouldn't be bargain cars for the rest of us.