Car shopping - lack of Model Year

As I'm doing my "window shopping" of vehicles available over there so I can become familiar with the different makes and models and prices, one thing that has struck me as interesting is many places over there don't list the year of the vehicle.   motorpoint.co.uk is one example of a site but I've seen plenty others as well. They'll tell you all the other options, mileage, etc. but not say what year the vehicle is.

I just thought that was odd and interesting. That's all. It's little things like that which I'm getting used to in all my research and I'm glad I'm starting so early so I can become accustom to differences like this. I have a feeling that if I wasn't doing all this research so early and was to just pack up and move over there with 3-4 months prep, I would experience a lot of culture shock and feel very disoriented.

As I'm doing my "window shopping" of vehicles available over there so I can become familiar with the different makes and models and prices, one thing that has struck me as interesting is many places over there don't list the year of the vehicle.   motorpoint.co.uk is one example of a site but I've seen plenty others as well. They'll tell you all the other options, mileage, etc. but not say what year the vehicle is.

I just thought that was odd and interesting. That's all. It's little things like that which I'm getting used to in all my research and I'm glad I'm starting so early so I can become accustom to differences like this. I have a feeling that if I wasn't doing all this research so early and was to just pack up and move over there with 3-4 months prep, I would experience a lot of culture shock and feel very disoriented.

They do here. 
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?search-target=usedcars&radius=&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly%20New&onesearchad=New&make=&price-search-type=total-price&price-from=&price-to=&body-type=Estate&year-from=&maximum-mileage=&fuel-consumption=&zero-to-60=&quantity-of-doors=&minimum-seats=&annual-tax-cars=&colour=&keywords=&fuel-type=&maximum-badge-engine-size=&transmission=&co2-emissions-cars=&maximum-seats=&insuranceGroup=&seller-type=&postcode=eh88dl

That’s a funny one because you can tell the year of the car from the plate if you can remember the complicated formula. 

There’s also web sites where you can enter the reg number and find basic info like year and engine size for free. 

Don’t miss auto trader, which I think is the biggest site by far for buying and selling cars.


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New cars are released twice a year and you can tell the age of a car from its license plate.  The latest style of plate is made up of two letters, two numbers and three letters. the two numbers will tell you the year of the car.  so "AB 18 ABB" will tell you this car was first registered during the 1st half (April to Aug) of 2018 if it was "AB 68 ABB" then it will be registered in the 2nd half (Sept to March) 2018/19.  We have used this system since 2000.

So the two number used so far are:-
Year 2000
1st half = 00
2nd half = 50

Year 2001
1st half = 01
2nd half = 51

Year 2002
1st half = 02
2nd half = 52

Year 2009
1st half = 09
2nd half = 59

Year 2010
1st half = 10
2nd half = 60

Year 2015
1st half = 15
2nd half = 65

Year 2018
1st half = 18
2nd half = 68

hope this helps..

Yes, I have Autotrader and a number of others bookmarked as well. I was just saying that I was surprised at the number of sites that DON'T list the year right in the advert. Just one of those weird observations/differences.

I've also been going through the "Best of" and "Most ____" lists on autoexpress.co.uk (http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/best-cars/64051/best-superminis). Its really helped me get familiar with so many of these cars I've never heard of.  I love car researching and test driving. I'm looking forward to that. I just hate the salespeople.

That’s a funny one because you can tell the year of the car from the plate if you can remember the complicated formula. 

There’s also web sites where you can enter the reg number and find basic info like year and engine size for free. 

Don’t miss auto trader, which I think is the biggest site by far for buying and selling cars.

Doing that registration lookup is also really useful for getting the official emissions values, which determine how much road tax you'll pay (the system has changed for new cars, but emissions still matter initially for new cars, and forever for older models).

How to look up the registration: https://vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/

How to look up your road tax:
https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables

Test driving can be a big ole pain in the ass here.  I've had to book to do a test drive before.  "Come back in 3 days" kind of thing....   

Hi,

Some good info above !

However, there are some other gotchya's as well !

My number plate (and a few others I have on retention with DVLA) are personalized ones, the one on my daily driver looks like a naughty slang word, other's look like my family name and a specific car's engine code designation. There's also 'dateless' plates which don't show the 'year' of the plate, so given the option you can assign any number plate to a car, so long as you don't make it 'look like' it's younger than it really is if using a 'date' recognisable plate, you can apply to 'assign' any number plate to be displayed on your car.

The main sites to buy/sell cars on is Autotrader, Ebay, Pistonheads and pretty much all adverts will have the 'year' of the car's first registration. Other's will be things like Imported cars, Q plate cars and classics etc which have a different 'formula' for identifaction of the model year. Keep in mind the 'date of first registration' can be different to the cars 'model year'. A vehicle manufactured in 1999 might be 'registered' in 2002 and in some cases,  over that period of time the 'actual' car has had a mid model year facelift in terms of design and specs. As you get to know certain cars you'll perhaps notice that.

If you are looking at car lease and PCP type sites, then you'll almost always be looking at 'current' cars or 'current model year' cars, so they'll be '2018' cars. There might be some '2017' ones so you'll need to look carefully. You'll not find '2014/5/6 year cars on these kinds of sites as they don't sell 'old' cars.

I'm a car nut, but there's still plenty to learn and the 'dynamic' of people like yourself from abroad and certain things many enthusiasts don't know or think about is interesting to me. One aspect for you to look into is to perhaps bring over an 'interesting' car from the USA, there's a big scene here for such cars. Me and my Bro have had two 2003 Anniversary Edition  Ford F150 Harley Davidson trucks, one we imported ourselves and kept for 8 years or so, and the other was already here and kept for about 6 months. A few UK Yankee members have brought over their USA cars too, so something to think about. When I'm able to do so again, I have my eye on a few crazy USA cars/trucks to bring over again !

What kind of car are you thinking about having/buying/leasing/financing here?

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!