When the Government decided to introduce a new system for vehicle registration numbers in the December budget, it immediately created a problem for many motor trade outlets who produce their own number plates.

As you may know, the decision was made to move away from the traditional year number, in favour a system with an extra digit added, to denote whether the vehicle was registered in the first half or the last half of the year. Thus we currently have new cars with the prefix 131 and will have a 132 prefix from the start of July. This change was made under pressure from the car sales industry, firstly in the hope that a mid year change of prefix might cause a mid year boost in sales, and secondly because it was felt some people might be put off buying a 13 plate car because of the superstition attached to the number. 

Whatever your views on the rights and wrongs of changing the system and whether it will have any sales benefits for the industry, the new format has caused some problems to people who produce plates, as older systems are not always capable of handling the new format and extra digit.

This problem has been especially compounded in the case of imported vehicles. A change was made to the registration system for imports earlier last year, whereby an imported car was assigned a higher registration number than Irish bought vehicles. Thus for example an 04 imported car registered in Dublin last year would have been registered as 04-D-120001 upwards. Cork is 40001 upwards, Mayo 10001 and so on, with figures well in excess of Irish registrations in any particular county. The reasons behind this change are less clear, although some believe it is to deter imports by making them more immediately recognisable. 

What the changes taken together now mean is that a newly imported vehicle in Dublin will now have a registration of 131-D-120001 upwards. With the allowance for spaces this reg and some in other counties will contain more digits than many older number plate systems can handle. 

While software updates on newer systems have been issued by most suppliers, many businesses are experiencing problems producing the new format plates. Most local motor factors will have a system that can cope with the new format and will be happy to produce these plates for you.

If you need new format plates or have any questions regarding the new numbering system please contact your local motor factor.