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Lots of talk about safety features and reliability in the thread. But I wonder if some of it is lack of great visual differentiation among model years. Harder t
by bruceb 5y ago
Lots of talk about safety features and reliability in the thread.
But I wonder if some of it is lack of great visual differentiation among model years. Harder to tell cars apart and they don’t rust like they used to.
Less social pressure to get new car as harder to tell what’s new.
Obviously not impossible but not as stark as a 1990 from a 2000 car.
2010 and 2020 car don’t look that much different.
- tialaramex 5y agoIn the UK the (non-vanity) plates tell you which six months the car was registered so e.g. a plate AB03 CDE was registered in the first half of 2003, whereas UV71 XYZ is from the second half of 2021. Thus most car owners in the UK can tell (unless you have vanity plates) roughly how old your car is.
- bruceb 5y agoThats interesting. I wonder what the logic behind this is? A neat experiment would be randomly issue vanity plates that change the year but look normal and see if there is a difference how long a person keeps the car. If having a plate that makes it appear you have a newer car makes you hang on to it longer.
- sys_64738 5y agoIn England the plate stays with the vehicle for the lifetime of the vehicle. Totally different in America.
- dingaling 5y agoThe original non-dated UK registration system is still in use in Northern Ireland, letters based on county of registration followed by sequential numbers. So a study might be able to look at mainland UK vehicle retention rates versus NI, though it would have to normalise for income and outgoings.
- Symbiote 5y agoYou aren't allowed a vanity plate that makes the car look newer, so 'SU51 100' (Susi) can't go on a car from before 2001. Vanity plates must fit a pattern of issue, you can't just ask for "SUSAN" (SUS 4N is from the 1970s or something though). However, people do sometimes put older vanity plates on newer cars to hide the age.