Hi,

Anyone know where you can buy or get hold of trade plates without buying a car from a dealer? Also anybody used any before? Would be very helpful cheers.

Dealers\Traders etc use trade plates. Can be used in the event of no tax or no. plates on the car, must have a current MOT tho.

Around £125 a year for a set I seem to remember from a set at work.

I'm guessing they are accompanied by the appropriate motor trade insurance etc. I'm not sure of any criteria you must meet to own a set. It cant be that easy because a lot of garages dont have them.

to use a companies trade plates you must either:

Be on the company insurance (e.g an employee) or have given the dealer a copy of both bits of your drivers license for temporary cover (e.g in the situation of a test drive) normally accompanied by a member of staff.

Joe public can't just buy them or use them.

Something I found with some simple google searching.....

Click!

Why is it i sometimes see random chaps thumbing lifts wearing suits, and waving trade plates about.....wtf....did they take someone on a test drive then get hi-jacked....??!!?

Why is it i sometimes see random chaps thumbing lifts wearing suits, and waving trade plates about.....wtf....did they take someone on a test drive then get hi-jacked....??!!?

they deliver cars, they save there train fair back by hitchhiking iirc, trade plates shows that they are legit - in theory

Why is it i sometimes see random chaps thumbing lifts wearing suits, and waving trade plates about.....wtf....did they take someone on a test drive then get hi-jacked....??!!?

Dont know about the suits but plenty of cars get delivered on trade plates and sometimes the person delivering the car will thumb a lift and pocket the travel expences, used to have a job like this about ten years ago, also used to get a train to collect a car and drive it home on trade plates, never thumbed a lift though, the pay was good enough and i quite liked the train journey

cheers for replies

probs have to dig in the wallet for tax and insurance then

Used these once or twice in past employment. Basically, they're used by bone fide dealers only on unregisterred/untaxed vehicles for purposes of:

Collection/delivery of car from point of purchase to premises, or point of premises to customer

Transportation to/from MOT

Customer demonstration

The police love to pull cars displaying trade plates, and will ask 20 questions to make sure you're working within the rules. We used to carry a written manifest detailing the journey with us.