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  • Writer's picturezara rose

What does a number plate tell you?

UK Number Plate System:

In 1903 driver licenses were introduced in the UK and in 1904, vehicle number plate system was introduced, this system helped identify the driver and vehicle. Initially, the number plate system contained only two digits.


After a period of time, some changes were made in the number plates, according to the needs of the governing body. Currently, there are seven characters being used in the number plates, the first two being letters, the next two numeric characters followed by space and three random characters.




Find Vehicle Age using Number Plate Check:


Today, we can find the age of the vehicle very easily due to the structure of the UK number plate system. In the seven-character registration number, the first two letters denote regional code and the next two numbers act as an age identifier.


There are two formats for a vehicle being registered, in 2020 (MAR to AUG) the two age identifier numbers are “20” and for the vehicle registered in (SEP to FEB), simply add the year with 50 like (20+50=70), so the number 70 is denoted on the number plate


DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) is an organization maintaining the database of driver and vehicle details. If you want to know more about your used car then enter your reg number onto the search tab of CarDotCheck and find out crucial details in one single report.


Beware of scam messages:

There have been many scams that pose to be DVLA for their personal gains and for gathering monetary or informative gain. Avoid messages like “update your profile details with DVLA or verify your driving license details”, sometimes even asking bank details.


These kind of scams are increasing wherein 2019 only 603 complaints were registered but in July 2020 to Sep 2020, the total number of registered complaints was 3807!


Scammers and swindlers will always be around, it is your duty to be aware and not give away information without thinking. While looking for a used car, you can always check the vehicle details using the registration plate finder. No need to signup, just check your used car, proceed to the checkout page and that’s it.


What are the details can get using plate finder:


To avoid buying a used car from swindlers, use car finder by registration plate from CarDotCheck. Staying safe and spending your money in the right place requires thorough research, you could use the number plate lookup to know more about the car’s plate history.


Enter your vehicle registration number to get details like MOT history, Tax details, Engine Specification, export status and much more. If you want to get more details they provide two types of data checks, prime check and pro check.


The prime check contains partial details while the Pro check contains the full report about the vehicle such as Outstanding finance, Write off details, stolen status, scrapped status, plate change history etc.

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