private plates / car history

[harry_p]

my m3 had a private plate on it 2 owners ago, the last owner didnt want / like it so had it removed and put the car back on a standard age related (1989 f-reg) plate.

would the plate it went on to (which it still has) be the same as the one it had before the private plate was put onto it, or would the dvla have pulled an age related plate out at random?

just curious as the car is regularly driven around my girlfriends area, and i know one of the previous owners lived in a village near by. if they'd spotted me driving around, would they have recognised the plate?

happy to pm someone the number if they have a way of digging up the previous plates it was on

[Alex]

random age related, mine was originally a 2 number plate from new but had a reg transfer and now it has 3 numbers half the history looks like its for another car but it says in the log book about the plate change

[march109]

No not necessarily, if the original plate was available then someone may have gone to the bother but don't hold your breath of the DVLA being so efficient, normally it just goes into the pool of available age related plates, and when it went to the new age related plate after the private plate was taken off chance are the next available plate was used.

[StuBeeDoo]

I've transferred private plates 4 times now.
The first 2 donor cars were issued with new age-related plates and the last 2 had their original plates re-instated.

[y8sey]

my car is on a private plate i rang the dvla they told me the original number and i could change back if i wanted.

[Gibson]

Often if the original plate is available you will get it.... but thats not always the case

[adit]

ive put my private reg on my e30s a few times now and they have always reverted to the original, pre-personal reg no.

[E30Mark]

It's a lottery!

My last E30 had a couple of private plates from previous owner and me, both times the private plates came off it reverted back to the original mark.

If you write to the DVLA and send £5 to them they will trace and send you copies of all the V5's from the previous owners. I did it for my current car with my private plate on and they sent me copies of all the owners from day 1 with the original mark. It takes a while to get the info from them, but it's nice to know who has owned your car before you!

You need to fill in form V888 download link below, state your trying to trace the previous owners etc and that's it!

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/Ow ... dition=Web