Registration rip-off?

anakha · 16-07-2005, 01:44 PM

I just had my brother's EB Fairmont re-registered so we could sell it more readily. The car had been un-registered since the end of April, but despite the fact that the registration was only renewed on July 14, the new expiry was April 30, 2006, per the date printed on the original renewal paper. This seems like a rort on the RTA's part.

Does anyone know or have experience with this? I would like to have them issue new registration papers with the expiry set twelve months from the date of payment.

QUIKXR6 · 16-07-2005, 03:06 PM

I think in order to do that you have to make it look like you are registering an unreg'd vehicle that has not been registered recently...you will have to go through roadworthy again though...

MrSparkle · 16-07-2005, 03:55 PM

Sounds ridiculous to me Kon old mate... I would have thought if they were going to do that, the least they could do is pro-rata it.

On the flipside, we are talking about the RTA here, or the Automotive Gestapo as I prefer to call them, and anything is possible.

Yaw · 16-07-2005, 07:10 PM

If you were pulled up for an unregistered vehicle there is usually a grace period to allow for late payments. They may have seen it as such and hence you are paying for the time during the "late payment period"
To a point it happens with Insurance too. People call up 6-8 weeks after the renewal is due and want to pay thier policy. Fact is if they had of had an accident during that period they would have expected we cover it as thier payment was only late. Most often the insurance company does in fact cover them, providing of course the payment is made and excess paid. (within reason here). Hence you have the same renewal period for the following year, put simply you are paying for a service ALREADY provided. I would expect if you were pulled up during the unregistered time and explained to the cop you had forgotten or were going to pay it within the next week you would have just gotten a warning. So take it simply as a service that has already been provided to you. No one has ripped you off.

Dodge · 16-07-2005, 08:59 PM

i just up dated my norton anti virus because it said it was due soon, as it is i had 4 weeks left, so when i updated it , it started from that day so i loose 1 month,,, then i missed payn my cars rego by 3 days ( weekend) i payed on the monday instead of the prev friday, all was good until my sticker came in the mail, I was robed 1 month on that too. so now i have to do my BAS, they owe mw money lets see how long until i get the dosh in my account, do i give them a pay by date or cop a fine or interist..yer right

anakha · 17-07-2005, 12:47 AM

Yaw

I disagree completely on that line of thinking. The law clearly states that a vehicle must be registered to be driven on public roads. Unlike insurance you have to jump through a few hoops to get it re-registered in NSW, roadworthy certificate, third party person insurance etc. If its not you may only drive it if you are actively in the process of trying to get it fixed up for registration. Furthermore you have to surrender the plates within two weeks or risk being fined if the vehicle is left unregistered.

I intentionally left the car unregistered. So with those details in mind, what service was the RTA offering that was worth short-changing me on my registration period?

Regarding leniency for late payments let me relate my recent experience with my driver's license. My license expired in mid May and due to a recent job change and the fact that I was now getting paid monthly I was totally strapped for cash and could not afford to renew the license immediately. Two weeks later on the very day I was planning to renew it I was pulled over by police on a major Sydney suburban street for no apparent reason. The driver asked for my license straight up and proceeded to grill me over it having expired. He would not allow me to continue driving and in fact drove the car with me in the passenger seat around the corner off the main road we were on to the first legal parking space. He informed me I would be receiving a $370 fine in the mail as it was my first offence of that nature.

Why did I get pulled over? The exterior portion of my rear bumper on my car (an ED) was missing and I figured they decided to run my plate as a possible unregistered vehicled while they were driving near me.

Yaw · 17-07-2005, 05:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anakha

Yaw

I disagree completely on that line of thinking. The law clearly states that a vehicle must be registered to be driven on public roads. Unlike insurance you have to jump through a few hoops to get it re-registered in NSW, roadworthy certificate, third party person insurance etc. If its not you may only drive it if you are actively in the process of trying to get it fixed up for registration. Furthermore you have to surrender the plates within two weeks or risk being fined if the vehicle is left unregistered.

I intentionally left the car unregistered. So with those details in mind, what service was the RTA offering that was worth short-changing me on my registration period?

Regarding leniency for late payments let me relate my recent experience with my driver's license. My license expired in mid May and due to a recent job change and the fact that I was now getting paid monthly I was totally strapped for cash and could not afford to renew the license immediately. Two weeks later on the very day I was planning to renew it I was pulled over by police on a major Sydney suburban street for no apparent reason. The driver asked for my license straight up and proceeded to grill me over it having expired. He would not allow me to continue driving and in fact drove the car with me in the passenger seat around the corner off the main road we were on to the first legal parking space. He informed me I would be receiving a $370 fine in the mail as it was my first offence of that nature.

Why did I get pulled over? The exterior portion of my rear bumper on my car (an ED) was missing and I figured they decided to run my plate as a possible unregistered vehicled while they were driving near me.

In your original statement you said
" just had my brother's EB Fairmont re-registered so we could sell it more readily. The car had been un-registered since the end of April, but despite the fact that the registration was only renewed on July 14, the new expiry was April 30, 2006, per the date printed on the original renewal paper. This seems like a rort on the RTA's part."

I focus on the fact you said renewed. If you did in fact hand the plates in and they issued you with new plates, that is a different story. Did you ask them to simply renew the rego? if you asked them to renew the rego as I suspect may be the case they have simply taken it as a late payment.
And did you in fact DEregister the car or just allow the rego to run out ?
Big difference there.

Yaw · 17-07-2005, 05:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dodge

i just up dated my norton anti virus because it said it was due soon, as it is i had 4 weeks left, so when i updated it , it started from that day so i loose 1 month,,, then i missed payn my cars rego by 3 days ( weekend) i payed on the monday instead of the prev friday, all was good until my sticker came in the mail, I was robed 1 month on that too. so now i have to do my BAS, they owe mw money lets see how long until i get the dosh in my account, do i give them a pay by date or cop a fine or interist..yer right

Why are you using Norton????????????? they charge subscription fees annually.
Use the free version of AVG you can get it at
www.grisoft.com

Do be careful to download the free version, not the trial version.
They basically give the previous version away as the free version.
Even if you want to pay for the latest version, no subscription fees for updates, and in my experience it picks up more than Norton does anyway.

the_scotsman · 17-07-2005, 10:21 PM

Norton charge!?...lol...an annual reinstall usually does the trick ;)
Either that, or installing the latest version when it is "available"

bindi · 18-07-2005, 07:29 AM

Anakha,

This is how it works (in NSW anyhow). They give you a three month grace period. If after that three months (which would've been July 30th), then the car is so far out of rego that it needs a blue slip to be reregistered. If you had reregistered it on July 31st you would've had to have gotten a blue slip and the registration would've started from July 31st.

Some people do this on purpose because of the timing involved... like mine. For example, I ended up having my car out of rego from 4th Jan 2003... took me a while to figure out if I actually needed a car and in the end I decided I did (after being booked and copping a fine of $920 for driving unrego'd and uninsured, yes my own fault!). I reregistered her on 14th March 2004. Now I don't have to fork out for rego 10 days after Xmas anymore.

In between April 30th and July 29th the car you mention can still get just a pink slip and therefore when you pay for it, according to RTA rules, you still have the original due date of April 30th the following year.

And a blue slip is not as scary as people make out ("Oh, it has to go over The Pits!"). It's a pink slip with an engine and chassis check, that's it. Also you have to pay for new plates and the blue slip is approx double the pink.

XR Martin · 18-07-2005, 10:40 AM

In my experience, a blue slip is ALOT more thorough. They wont allow mods for one, I had a mate who tried to register his VL Turbo from the ACT to NSW. He needed to change the filter, exhaust, suspension, steering wheel. He goes through a pink slip now and they dont care about those mods, as long as the lights, tyres and brakes are fine it'll pass.

bindi · 18-07-2005, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XR6 Martin

In my experience, a blue slip is ALOT more thorough. They wont allow mods for one, I had a mate who tried to register his VL Turbo from the ACT to NSW. He needed to change the filter, exhaust, suspension, steering wheel. He goes through a pink slip now and they dont care about those mods, as long as the lights, tyres and brakes are fine it'll pass.

Yeah you're right, if you have mods then you have to worry. I didn't because my car has none lol

I think the guy who looked it over said that it wasn't anything to worry about if you haven't done serious mods that are bordering on illegal etc.