Autotrader - recorded plate change

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Thu 9 Feb 2023 22:10
Autotrader - recorded plate change - Warning

I saw a vehicle I was interested in on autotrader. There are tabs in autotrader, so I clicked on it.

It says :

Full history check - All checks passed

However, it has flagged up the following:

Recorded plate change - This check shows the car has had a registration plate change. People often buy a private plate to personalise their vehicle, but sometimes plates are changed to hide a vehicles history. For peace of mind, contact the seller to get a list of all recorded plate changes.

The seller is an independent car dealer, with 200+ reviews and a 4.8 rating. The car does come with service history. However, how to I check the paperwork, if it had private number plates?

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Thu 9 Feb 2023 23:03
Autotrader - recorded plate change - Andrew-T

Provided DVLA has recorded the change, the records should be traceable as the data is indexed by the car's VIN.

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Fri 10 Feb 2023 09:24
Autotrader - recorded plate change - veloceman
Do a HPI check. This will show any previous plate changes.
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Fri 10 Feb 2023 23:47
Autotrader - recorded plate change - Big John

When my son bought a car from a major dealer it'd had a plate change as the previous owner had a personalised number plate. The MOT certificate still had the personalised number but showed up under the new number on the gov MOT site. Having a personalised plate is common , we did a HPI search on the car which showed up dealer stock finance!

Infact Mrs BJ has a personalised plate (inherited) on her Panda which we will apply for plate retention and assign a new (original?) number back to the car when we eventually change cars.

Edited by Big John on 10/02/2023 at 23:54

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Sat 11 Feb 2023 07:49
Autotrader - recorded plate change - RT

When my son bought a car from a major dealer it'd had a plate change as the previous owner had a personalised number plate. The MOT certificate still had the personalised number but showed up under the new number on the gov MOT site. Having a personalised plate is common , we did a HPI search on the car which showed up dealer stock finance!

Infact Mrs BJ has a personalised plate (inherited) on her Panda which we will apply for plate retention and assign a new (original?) number back to the car when we eventually change cars.

If the Panda had an original number, before Mrs BJ put her cherished number on, then it'll be reinstated when you put the cherished number on retention - UNLESS - the unlikely scenario that DVLA have re-issued it to someone else.

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