German plates

[christoff 0]

Ive got some quality pressed steel german no. plates on my car, has anyone else had any problems with the police? as im an mot tester i know their not exactly legal but just wondered about police reactions if you get pulled over?

[MattWilde 10]

there is a thread where someone has been stopped and fined for having them, but I'm not sure how fussy the police are with them. I've been followed by the police before and they have never stopped me for my plates

[The_Dude 0]

Had mine on for over 6 months and not been pulled over, but as I've said before I live in south London and the police have more pressing matters to deal with.

I think they are cracking down though. Keep a proper set in the boot and claim you forgot to change them after a show at the weekend!

[christoff 0]

good idea m8 il do that for sure :)

[VR6 South 0]

Fancy doing an MOT for me next month :) I'll remove my german plates beforehand!

[paul20v 0]

mot wise the plates are fine as long as the digits are even through out ,eg not italic, and the spacing is correct its the law thats the pain in the donkey ,

when there not right apparently the road tax cameras dont like them hence the crack down lately

[yeti 0]

erm i thought the law now was that all vehicles going through an mot had to display plates with the postcode of the manufacturer on them (halfords use an etched effect lettering so its barely visable)...

 

i got done by the police after 10 000 miles using white front and back german plates with roundels on my C and tried the 'they're show plates officer sorry i forgot to change them' he couldnt give a sh1t and gave me a £30 fine and confiscated the plates... also threatened to report my number to the dvla for misuse of a private plate (only applies if you have one but worth bearing in mind!)

 

i have 3 mates who are coppers, alll said that if i was stoped just pull the show plates trick and it should be ok, but as i found out, not all policemen are reasonable, and the dvla are having a massive crackdown with the police's help atm on misuse of number plates (private or normal!)

 

HTH

 

Andy

[vwdeviant 0]

mot wise the plates are fine as long as the digits are even through out ,eg not italic, and the spacing is correct its the law thats the pain in the donkey ,

 

Wrong, I left my D-plates on for my recent MOT as it was going to fail on other stuff so a case of lets see... The plates alone had 4 fails EACH on them font/spacing/d-band/stadt stickers...

 

so NO a German font, D-banded, Stadt & Emission stickered plate won't go through the new "Automated" MOT

[jackflash 0]

I got fined £30 a couple of months back for my plates but there was a lot of bad luck involved in that the one on the back had fallen off due to shit sticky pads and I was genuinely driving to Halfords to get some new pads for the plate to stick it back on. Sod's law I got pulled on the way there and of course there was no way the old bill believed that I was on my way to sort it out and so I actually got done for not displaying the plate as well as having illegal plates. They told me that the German font is illegal, the spacing is illegal and even the bit where you have the name of the country is illegal if it doesn't have GB but the car is registered to this country (I've got DUB on the plates - blagging that they're from Dubai doesn't work :lol: ). And to top it all off I had my normal plates in the boot too.

 

Also got a ticket on my old mk2 golf while it was parked up at night for illegal plates, though they were the old style silver font on a black background so a bit more obvious. Still, you'd think the police would have better things to do on a Friday night in a town centre than ticket cars for illegal plates...

[Traverse 0]

If I were to drive with mine on, I'd get a ticket if I got pulled over, but cops don't normally look for them. Some cops will pull you over for it, but alot of them won't do anything about it unless they pull you over for something else (speeding, running a red light, etc). Some states won't do anything, but mine will because we're required to have a front plate on the car.

 

Darn USA :roll:

[ADZ_VR6 0]

so what is legal then??? anone got a link to anywhere u can get some legal german looking plates??

[jackflash 0]

Don't think you'll find any plates that are legal whilst looking German tbh, as has been said the font and spacing is illegal if it's different in any way at all from the normal UK plates. Pretty much the only thing you can legally do is have a pin stripe round the edge of the plate or something similar (I'm sure the police could even find something wrong with this) :(

[kvwloon 0]

don't know if it helps, but I just got some pressed plates made up, but to try and avoid trouble, using UK font and correct spacing, but with stadt stickers, hopefully I'll be OK, time will tell? Ebay does 'em.

[Valerian 0]

I have already covered this subject in one of my previous posts.

 

These two links have all the imformation you need :-

 

http://www.dvla.gov.uk/media/pdf/leaflets/v796.pdf

 

http://www.plates4less.co.uk/number-pla ... lities.asp

 

Make sure you read the DVLA document carefully.

[Valerian 0]

There will be a new type of number plate later this year.

see here :- http://www.dvla.gov.uk/pressoffice/pres ... ber+plates

[christoff 0]

I got mine from http://www.craigsplates.com, i recommend them - brilliant service and the plates are the real deal !

About two months ago vosa changed the mot manuel to say that cars had to display the postcode of suppiying outlet etc and every thing exept an "approved national flag or euro gb sign" was a reason for a fail but they have been forced by the goverment to do a u turn because they dont have the legal powers to decide this, I know this is correct because I went on my 5 year mot testers refresher course last week and asked

[paul20v 0]

mot wise the plates are fine as long as the digits are even through out ,eg not italic, and the spacing is correct its the law thats the pain in the donkey ,

 

Wrong, I left my D-plates on for my recent MOT as it was going to fail on other stuff so a case of lets see... The plates alone had 4 fails EACH on them font/spacing/d-band/stadt stickers...

 

so NO a German font, D-banded, Stadt & Emission stickered plate won't go through the new "Automated" MOT

you can get a german look plate with normal font , d band is totally ok ,stadt and emissions stickers are out and any plate without bsau etching is fine pre 2001 ,back to the font there is only a few of the digits that are not quite right for mot rules, also 3d letters are fine, honeycombed plates and images in the background this is pre 2001 and as i already said the spacing has to be correct and digits have to be even throughout which is were a few of the german fonts fall but not all , and the new mot is computerised not automated and its nothing to do with this its always been the same it everyone having a panic attack about computerisation , but you can still leave the testing station and get booked as soon as your wheels hit the public highway the law and mot have lots of things different

and as i was quoted wrong ,tell me why you went for a test knowing your car was in an unfit state for test as you said(it was going to fail on other stuff so a case of lets see)

 

:)

[paul20v 0]

I got mine from http://www.craigsplates.com, i recommend them - brilliant service and the plates are the real deal !

About two months ago vosa changed the mot manuel to say that cars had to display the postcode of suppiying outlet etc and every thing exept an "approved national flag or euro gb sign" was a reason for a fail but they have been forced by the goverment to do a u turn because they dont have the legal powers to decide this, I know this is correct because I went on my 5 year mot testers refresher course last week and asked

yeah one day it was there and the next day or so there is a special notice saying forget about every thing nearly we have written in the reasons for rejection ,

it was the longest failure list in the whole system ,just another vosa inteligence trip :D

ps . is it just me or do you find the refresher course fun too j o k i n g

pps . i have used craigs plates too good service

[Guest]

I cant see the atraction of "pretending" to be German.......No offence to Germans (Ahem, cough splutter) but German machinery and engineering is ace, but im british! English to be exact!

 

So how many of those displaying German plates feel a little uncomfotable when England are playing fusbal against Zee Germans? how many of you have had objects thrown at your cars? well during one dismal football tornament some years back in my town i had about a quids worth of loose change thrown at my mk1 Gti based soley on the fact it was a German car!!! chipped my bonnet, wing and windscreen! so you may want to consider Union flags instead

[VR6 South 0]

I cant see the atraction of "pretending" to be German.......No offence to Germans (Ahem, cough splutter) but German machinery and engineering is ace, but im british! English to be exact!

 

I'm not pretending to be German. It's my Corrado wearing German plates which is proud of its German heritage :)

[Guest]

Have you changed your name to Herman or Fritz aswell? :lol:

 

I can understand the atraction of the plates as they are different, but cant see the point in paying fines you could pay for petrol and fun with! especially VR owners!...........and after all the German boys and girls dont put Brit plates on their cars do they? but then German law is soooooooooo much strickter than here anyway so you would probbaly be jaoled for 10 years if you did it!

[scarlet_vr6 0]

I much prefer the font on the German plates. My set haven't even made it onto the car yet and I'm not going to bother at the moment, guess they'll have to be for meets only :(

[paul20v 0]

Have you changed your name to Herman or Fritz aswell? :lol:

 

I can understand the atraction of the plates as they are different, but cant see the point in paying fines you could pay for petrol and fun with! especially VR owners!...........and after all the German boys and girls dont put Brit plates on their cars do they? but then German law is soooooooooo much strickter than here anyway so you would probbaly be jaoled for 10 years if you did it!

whats with the vr owners bit its the best car i have ever owned on fuel anywhere between 30-37 mpg great stuff

[Guest]

Have you changed your name to Herman or Fritz aswell? :lol:

 

I can understand the atraction of the plates as they are different, but cant see the point in paying fines you could pay for petrol and fun with! especially VR owners!...........and after all the German boys and girls dont put Brit plates on their cars do they? but then German law is soooooooooo much strickter than here anyway so you would probbaly be jaoled for 10 years if you did it!

whats with the vr owners bit its the best car i have ever owned on fuel anywhere between 30-37 mpg great stuff

 

 

Not if you drive it properly you wont! I think im qualified to comment as I also OWN a 97 VR6 highline golf, standard engine, and around the town you will be lucky to get 20-25 out of it!! on a motorway run i have seen (on MFA) upto 37mpg, its hardly economicla if you drive it hard, unless you have one of those Ebay fuel savers fitted :lol:

[vwdeviant 0]

and as i was quoted wrong ,tell me why you went for a test knowing your car was in an unfit state for test as you said(it was going to fail on other stuff so a case of lets see)

 

Sorry Mum! :lol:

 

I always go in expecting something to fail, I'm NOT a MOT tester so I don't know everything that it will fail on.

 

However a couple days before it was due, I noticed a split UJ boot so, not being able to get one in time, and the fact that I'm out the house at 6am and not home till 8pm (by when I really don't feel much like working on the car when I get in) I gave it to my mate who's a mechanic to take for a MOT, advise me on what it failed on (if anything) and let me know how much and how long.

 

Oh and the fact that I'd lost my front UK plate the day before to an idiot in the station carpark that took TWO attempts to destroy it it would have failed on that too!

 

Apart from plates (with the above "fails") It did only fail on the CV Gaiter (and not on the clicky CV under it strangely enough!), and a bulging soft line (which looked fine to me when I was under the car, but I guess without tramping on the pedal...)