Car questions again

[catt]

Can anyone tell me what the equivalent to Road Tax and MOT are in NZ if there is any? Do we need to know anything else about the differences between the UK and NZ with regard to owning a car?

[Glenda]

MOT is Warrant of Fitness (WOF) here and has to be obtained

on a car under six years of age - once a year
on a car over six years of age - every six months.

I have never been charged more than $40.00 for the WOF itself, of course repairs are extra.

For UK Road Tax, we have 'vehicle licence' which is paid each year at is currently $183.22. Check here:- Factsheet 49 - Vehicle licensing

Can't think of anything else important about owning a car. You do have to get a NZ driving licence within one year of being here (study the road code, take a 35 question test). We did this at our local AA shop which also deals with vehicle licence as well as their insurances.

Another thing with respect to driving licences - it is the law here to carry it around with you whenever you drive.

[catt]

Thanks for the info Glenda very useful.,

Does NZ allow personal number plates, i looked at other pages on the site you provided but couldnt find much on it. We currently have one here and wanted to know more about being able to bring it with us or at least find something similar there.........also is it expensive to do. Can anyone advise?

[alan&moyra]

Yes you can have personalised plates here, use google.nz and do a search on it, not too sure about bringing your own plate with you, however if it has not been used here I assume you could get it

[MotherBear]

Personlised number plates are quite popular in NZ and we enjoyed looking out for them whilst driving around. Some were quite clever and others downright funny. I believe you can more or less have what you want but letters and numbers must generally total up to 6.

As you can see there's plenty to choose from.

I wouldn't like to say whether you could use your actual plates from the UK as they would no doubt have to conform to the NZ standard .

Personalised plates

Personalised plates exist, where for a premium a vehicle's registered owner may purchase a plate with a specific unique combination of characters. The purchaser may use any combination that falls outside the standard numbering sequences (apart from derogatory or obscene combinations). Although plate character/number combinations can contain "spaces", they do not form part of the unique identification and are typically not stored (for example, in Police computer-systems). Therefore if a personalised plate such as "I A I" already exists, an owner cannot purchase a combination such as "IAI", and vice versa.

The most sought-after combinations available as personalised plates (such as "A1" or "AAAAAA") became special "collector plates", with lettering in blue on white. These plates sometimes change hands for large sums of money.

Currently, prospective buyers can order a personalised set of plates as normal black-and-white plates, as red plates (red font on white background), as "lifestyle plates" (with a picture), as "Europlate plates" (European style and dimensions), or as message plates (with a small message above and/or below the license number).

From here .

I guess you could always have a set made up if that particular number wasn't already taken.

Here's one I took during our first visit. Hope you can see it.