Oi! DVLA! No!

Proposing charges for SORN ? Are they taking the utter piss ?

In article ,=20 snipped-for-privacy@recycle.bin spouted forth into uk.rec.cars.modifications...

I think it is a =A34.50 fee to cover the "Free" tax disc for historic=20 vehicles. So Free becomes =A34.50, which no doubt can and will be=20 increased when they feel like it, probably annually.

--=20 Carl Robson "Sorry Sir the meatballs are orf" (The poster formerly known as Skodapilot)

It is a £4.50 fee for /everything/ related to vehicle taxation IIRC. Annual declaration of SORN included.

Richard

They did that when they started automatically fining you for not renewing the SORN even if your car hadn't even sniffed a public highway and you hadn't committed an offence other than one designed purely to extract fines. IMO.

Now they're taking the urethra and probably your bladder and kidneys too.

I've printed a bunch of the forms and handed them to local motor facters etc. Not often I get active about these things, but the DVLA needs to have it's arse kicked in a right royal fashion.

Richard

Indeed.

I got nicked for no tax in the Capri two days after I bought it. One of those camera van things.

Now, fair enough I was driving without tax so I've got to expect to be done for it, and I was fined £60 by the plod for failure to display a current disc. Cops were ok about it at the time, explained I'd only just got the car, was waiting for the insurance doc to arrive, and that it'd be backtaxed to the beginning of the month - this was April 24th, I bought the Capri on April 20th. When I got the insurance docs through, I went to the post office, filled in all the forms, and taxed it from the beginning of April, which meant I'd owned the car for five days, but taxed it for 25.

End of August I get a letter from the DVLA wanting £31 for the two days the Capri wasn't taxed in April.

I rang them up and explained that I'd owned the car for two days and had already backdated the tax for 25, I'd paid the Police £60, the tax was due for renewal within the week, and that so far, to tax my car for six months if I paid the £31, it would have cost me £181.75 and that I thought it was a bit steep.

Her reply "That's the minimum fine. you're getting off lightly."

So any anti-DVLA things I can sign, they've got my signature.

Well... why should it be free?

In news:417e9b06 snipped-for-privacy@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com, Mark W decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Because we already pay more in this country to drive than anywhere else in the known universe.

i would have wrote a really shitty letter set it on fire then dropped it on her dorrstep pressed the bell and run off

I'm not quite sure why those who choose to run a tax exempt car should be subsidised by the rest of us in terms of the cost of registering it? No one who is truly poor would dream of running a vehicle that old for economic reasons. It's a hobby. So why should everyone else subsidise it more than any other similar thing?

Why should it be, period? Your car is your property. They don't ask for sodding caravans parked off the road, or even on it, to be insured or taxed or SORNed, why should your car, parked in your private garage, registered in your name, be any of their business until you put it onto a public road?

Richard

it's easier to screw you, the ritous person, than to get money off someone who won't even be able to afford the fine in one lump sum there's your answer you filled the form in, they have your details, they will screw you for every penny that reminds me, i've got to scorn my sierra' and Granada and transit yet

Coz sorn means the car's not on the road so isn't "taxing" the roads as such?

Next they'll be doing the same for the dealers forecourts then scrapyards... ;-)

Mark S.

You didn't read the form. It's nothing to do with tax exempt cars, it's to do with charging for SORN. That's /all/ cars.

People should be encouraged to run older cars. The environmental impact of a new car far outweighs that of running an old car, even a thirsty tank. I'm quite aware of the hypocrisy in my preaching this, but if old cars had a value equal to their worth, then I wouldn't run a new one. For example, if my 1990 Supra were worth, say, £6,000, I would be happy to spend the £500 every six months on routine maintenance/restoration. However, it's worth £1,500. Even if it were completely mint, with a rebuilt engine, it would still be worth no more than £2K, maybe £2.5K. It is a vicious circle.

You know... when I passed my test, in 1992, an 8-year old Chevette - an obsolete, laughable car - was still worth £900. Now, Ian has a very tidy Kia Mentor, 1998 on an 'R', 72,000 miles - vastly superior in technology, equipment and everything else to a Chevette by most people's standards - and he is convinced it is only worth, to sell, £595. Someone will buy it, and the first big bill for a consumable - say brake discs and pads, maybe shoes or a clutch - the car is financially a write-off. There's nothing wrong with the car, but it's worthless.

Anything, no matter how small, which discourages people from maintaining, keeping and using functional old cars - regardless of classic status - should be discouraged. If someone not only has to declare SORN, but also has to pay (£4.50 now, unregulated, so who knows what after a year or two), they may scrap that perfectly good car instead of saving to replace the exhaust or clutch when the weather gets better. If it subsidises the sale of new cars (according to that website, the new fee scheme is hoping to reduce the cost of new car and import 'registration' fees, using the income from the proposed charges) then it is considerably more reprehensible.

Richard

I assume that is supposed to be some kind of joke ?

If not, I'll bite - why should you be charged for having your car offroad and unused ?

In article , snipped-for-privacy@recycle.bin spouted forth into uk.rec.cars.modifications...

Because they choose to, and because they can, and because they know where you live.

Yes, and yes.

One, I'm an enthusiast, and have more than one car. Already I have to tax those made after 72, even though I can only drive one at a time, and park any others off road. Those I have SORNed whilst sorting them out will now also cost money - So in fact the DVLA has worked out a nice way of making money out of what often become temporary crap storage boxes.

Two, I'm not well off. Not in the slightest. But I do require personal transport. I struggle to afford the insurance on most cars, even my 1300 Metro is pushing the limits I can reach to insure! So I'm fortunate that old cars are also a hobby to me, as basically all I can really afford in terms of transport is classics, and then only because I pick and chose carefully, and do all my own work, often picking up duff ones and fixing them.

Three, why is it subsidy? Although I have a tax exempt car, for six months of the year I still pay tax on another car. Charges keep going up. Road tax has for a long time been far higher than the amount that ever goes anywhere near the roads. In fact, you aren't subsidising my old car, but the health service, wars, schools, and everything else. So why begrudge me, or anyone else, the benefit of a tax break? You'd be better off pushing for one yourself, instead of moaning about others, IMO.

I never fail to be astonished how many otherwise sane people seem to think it's perfectly fair to have more taken out of their pocket every year because someone somewhere has said it has to be done. I can't understand why an admin civil service department has gone from charges here and there to a widescale structure of extracting as much money as possible. I wonder, are they, as civil servants, there to serve us, or are we here to fund them?

I had problems getting a logbook out of them recently, and got concerned the car couldn't be taxed till it turned up, and I was in 2 minds about declaring SORN (MOT was nearly up, but I like to have a valid tax disc so people don't think the car's abandoned). The woman at the DVLA I spoke to reckoned there's 14 days between the tax running out and the end of the period you can SORN without any fines. So basically, that's like the old 14 day period of grace. Something I was under the impression no longer happened.

Other than getting mixed messages every time I speak to them (seems a cunnin g ploy, never tell you a straight answer, in the hope you f*ck up and they can fine you), I was mightily pissed off that I had to fork out for the logbook. The previous owner had never sorted it out, but had eventually informed Swansea he'd sold the car to me. But I still had to pay for the bloody paperwork, and wait for them to do a "security check" even though he'd already said what had happened, and confirmed he'd sold me the car. So that's them making 2 lots of work for themselves, and getting a tidy sum out of me for daring to buy a car. Sneaky.

In news:clmv5g$dcl$ snipped-for-privacy@news.freedomsurf.net, Stuffed decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

I had to buy a logbook for my Sierra. I applied for it on around the 10th of August, paid the £19 for it, then was told by the DVLA that "You have to wait between 4 and 6 weeks for it". I said to the girl on the phone "does that mean I have to SORN it while I'm waiting then?", she informed me that "Oh, no, it won't be registered to you until a couple of days before you receive the registration certificate".. It arrived about 5 weeks later.

The date of change of ownership? 1st of August.