License plates and other car embellishments

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Amy
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by Amy » May Wed 08, 2013 9:17 pm

Enchantment wrote:My husband just purchased his mid-life crisis car and the old SUV, aka now the Mommy-mobile, can be Disney-ized! YAY! Going in the fall and will buy all things Disney for the Mommycar! :D
Whoo~hoo! Maybe you can get some Disney-fied personalized plates too?

I am Sulley
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by I am Sulley » May Sun 26, 2013 2:34 pm

Here is a plate I spotted whilst staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort in 2011

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69727507@N07/8845329620/

We cannot do this sort of thing in the UK. We have to have what we are given or hang on to an old one.

Amy
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by Amy » May Sun 26, 2013 2:47 pm

I am Sulley wrote:Here is a plate I spotted whilst staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort in 2011

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69727507@N07/8845329620/

We cannot do this sort of thing in the UK. We have to have what we are given or hang on to an old one.
Nice spotting of a Disney plate! So there is no such thing as a personalized plate in the UK? It is a really inexpensive form of fun for us here in Michigan. $15 extra per year isn't much when the plates already cost a lot ~ and the plates always make me smile when I see them :D

I am Sulley
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by I am Sulley » May Mon 27, 2013 4:00 am

Amy wrote:
I am Sulley wrote:Here is a plate I spotted whilst staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort in 2011

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69727507@N07/8845329620/

We cannot do this sort of thing in the UK. We have to have what we are given or hang on to an old one.
Nice spotting of a Disney plate! So there is no such thing as a personalized plate in the UK? It is a really inexpensive form of fun for us here in Michigan. $15 extra per year isn't much when the plates already cost a lot ~ and the plates always make me smile when I see them :D
We have quite strict rules on License or registration plates as we call them. They must conform to specific letters and format as they are age related and you can only have a plate that has been issued or could have been issued. However some combinations of letters and numbers, particularly the older ones can be made to represent a word or name. For example the owner of a local cleaning company near me has BRU 5 H on his Rolls Royce, get it? So technically you could have D 15 NEY .
These sort of plates can change hands for thousands of pounds. Alot of people simple have their initials with a random number but even that could cost £200 upwards.
I secured a plate dating from 1958 from an old Double Decker bus which is now on my wife's car. It is XFM 211, nothing special but I like it as I passed my bus test on XFM 203 :)

Amy
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by Amy » May Mon 27, 2013 8:20 am

So you can buy other peoples' old plates? That would be fun if you could find something Disney related wouldn't it? Sounds like the plate on your wife's car has a fun story behind it :D

theBIGyowski
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by theBIGyowski » May Tue 28, 2013 7:39 am

Amy wrote:
I am Sulley wrote:Here is a plate I spotted whilst staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort in 2011

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69727507@N07/8845329620/

We cannot do this sort of thing in the UK. We have to have what we are given or hang on to an old one.
Nice spotting of a Disney plate! So there is no such thing as a personalized plate in the UK? It is a really inexpensive form of fun for us here in Michigan. $15 extra per year isn't much when the plates already cost a lot ~ and the plates always make me smile when I see them :D
Wow...it costs us an extra $60 or so per year to have our personalized plates in Alabama.
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1986: Offsite
1997: Offsite
2001: Coronado Springs
2008: Shades of Green / Saratoga Springs (WDW Half Marathon)
2009: Port Orleans French Quarter (WDW Half Marathon)
2010: Port Orleans Riverside (Honeymoon)
2011: Old Key West / Bay Lake Tower
2014: Kidani Village
2015: Old Key West (5th Wedding Anniversary)
2016: Old Key West (Kids' first WDW vacation in December!)

Amy
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by Amy » May Tue 28, 2013 8:51 pm

theBIGyowski wrote:
Amy wrote:
I am Sulley wrote:Here is a plate I spotted whilst staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort in 2011

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69727507@N07/8845329620/

We cannot do this sort of thing in the UK. We have to have what we are given or hang on to an old one.
Nice spotting of a Disney plate! So there is no such thing as a personalized plate in the UK? It is a really inexpensive form of fun for us here in Michigan. $15 extra per year isn't much when the plates already cost a lot ~ and the plates always make me smile when I see them :D
Wow...it costs us an extra $60 or so per year to have our personalized plates in Alabama.
Yes, it is a cheap extra here. The main license fee is determined by vehicle value and it decreases as the vehicle ages. My car is 13 years old this year and still costs around $125/year for plates. An additional $15 for Disneyfication is well worth it :mickey:
You have specialized plates in addition to personalized plates though don't you? I think it adds $10 - $35 more for a fundraising plate ~ like for a college or charitable organization, like save our lighthouses for example.

theBIGyowski
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by theBIGyowski » May Wed 29, 2013 7:49 am

Yes...we have vanity plates as well...which carries a flat fee of $60. The money for that plate goes to whatever charity/school/foundation that it promotes. The nice thing is that if you get a vanity plate, you don't have to pay extra to personalize it. So you are better off paying for the vanity plate and personalizing for free...and usually having a vanity plate gives you a lower chance of someone else having the phrase/word you want to use.
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1986: Offsite
1997: Offsite
2001: Coronado Springs
2008: Shades of Green / Saratoga Springs (WDW Half Marathon)
2009: Port Orleans French Quarter (WDW Half Marathon)
2010: Port Orleans Riverside (Honeymoon)
2011: Old Key West / Bay Lake Tower
2014: Kidani Village
2015: Old Key West (5th Wedding Anniversary)
2016: Old Key West (Kids' first WDW vacation in December!)

theBIGyowski
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by theBIGyowski » Oct Mon 05, 2015 1:21 pm

theBIGyowski wrote:We had to change DW's name on her car title to her married name and add me to it as well...so we decided we might as well get the car tag changed while we were at the courthouse...

we decided to change it to "DSNEY" as we had 5 characters to work with

it should be in sometime within the next several weeks...I'll be sure to post a picture
So we moved from AL to GA a few months ago and had to register our vehicles in the state of GA. In that process we also went ahead and got new tags for our cars. In GA, you have three options:

1) Regular Plate - there are two of these you can pick from and they are generic with random letters and numbers
2) Special License Plate - these are your college/organization/cause plates and they cost an extra $20-$30 or so each year
3) Prestige Plate - this is the standard plain plate but with a combination of letters/numbers that you want...for example "DSNEY" like I had in AL

We decided to see if "DSNEY" was available when registering at the DMV and thankfully it was. The cost was $90 which is dang expensive but some of that was a "first time" cost to make the plate. After this it is just $55 per year.

Well...today...several weeks later...we get a letter in the mail saying "DSNEY" was rejected because it violates GA's copyright laws. Apparently it too closely resembles "Disney" and therefore the state of GA can't print it.

I have two questions...

1) Why wasn't this an issue in the state of Alabama where I had this tag for several years?
2) Why was I allowed to purchase this tag and pay for it there in the tag office if it was going to be rejected?

I know that these accept/reject decisions are made by a human or they'd have some kind of checking software that would have rejected it at the tag office. Now I don't know what to do because we specifically got the tags we got so we could keep "DSNEY". Otherwise we would have just gotten the standard plate which is cheaper. So we're going to see if we can come up with something else between 5-6 letters/numbers that have a WDW meaning without violating the copyright laws. It's not very easy.
Image

1986: Offsite
1997: Offsite
2001: Coronado Springs
2008: Shades of Green / Saratoga Springs (WDW Half Marathon)
2009: Port Orleans French Quarter (WDW Half Marathon)
2010: Port Orleans Riverside (Honeymoon)
2011: Old Key West / Bay Lake Tower
2014: Kidani Village
2015: Old Key West (5th Wedding Anniversary)
2016: Old Key West (Kids' first WDW vacation in December!)

theBIGyowski
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by theBIGyowski » Oct Mon 05, 2015 1:59 pm

Here are a few I have thought up so far (they can be up to 7 characters)...

MONORAL
MONRAIL
WDWFANS (this might get rejected...don't know)
WDWFMLY
SPACEMT
SPACMTN
SPCMTN
SPLSHMT
ZPDODAH
DOLWHIP
TWRVTRR
TWROTRR
LOVEOKW
Image

1986: Offsite
1997: Offsite
2001: Coronado Springs
2008: Shades of Green / Saratoga Springs (WDW Half Marathon)
2009: Port Orleans French Quarter (WDW Half Marathon)
2010: Port Orleans Riverside (Honeymoon)
2011: Old Key West / Bay Lake Tower
2014: Kidani Village
2015: Old Key West (5th Wedding Anniversary)
2016: Old Key West (Kids' first WDW vacation in December!)

Amy
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by Amy » Oct Mon 05, 2015 3:50 pm

Well that is annoying of them ~ Very strange about the infringement too. I could have even spelled out DISNEY in Michigan if I wanted to but chose to go with the DIZNEE in honor of the Test Track version.

I suppose it comes down to what you love best. I think your ZPDODAH option is a cute one. And the LOVEOKW is a good one for y'all since you like that resort. I'm sure there are tons more options to skim through if you want to do a personalized Disney plate search online as well. I know I looked through quite a few for Mom when we were getting ours. I was already pretty well set on DIZNEE for mine. I figured she would have wanted something spelling out Tinker Bell, but her love of Figment won out, so she ended up with F1GMENT. At least I think she had to get the 1 instead of the I ~ I never can remember.

In any case, they should definitely reimburse you if you end up going with the basic plate! Is it worth calling them and checking with a real person and explaining it was approved when you ordered it and paid for it? See if you can somehow fight for it?

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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by theBIGyowski » Oct Mon 05, 2015 7:54 pm

yeah they said they would refund us if we went with the normal plate, but I'm sure that would take a while since it's the state and although they are quick to take your money, they aren't as eager to give it back

I'll definitely do a search to see what we can come up with...thanks for that tip!
Image

1986: Offsite
1997: Offsite
2001: Coronado Springs
2008: Shades of Green / Saratoga Springs (WDW Half Marathon)
2009: Port Orleans French Quarter (WDW Half Marathon)
2010: Port Orleans Riverside (Honeymoon)
2011: Old Key West / Bay Lake Tower
2014: Kidani Village
2015: Old Key West (5th Wedding Anniversary)
2016: Old Key West (Kids' first WDW vacation in December!)

I am Sulley
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by I am Sulley » Oct Mon 19, 2015 4:05 pm

Although you appear to have some fussy officials in your states at least you do get a good choice. Here in the UK the rules are very strict with many plates retained by the Vehicle Licensing Agency for sale at Auctions simply to make money for the Government. On checking I found D15 NEY was sold at auction in October 1999 for £3400 (current exchange rate $5258), obviously much more now!

Amy
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by Amy » Oct Mon 19, 2015 6:28 pm

theBIGyowski wrote:yeah they said they would refund us if we went with the normal plate, but I'm sure that would take a while since it's the state and although they are quick to take your money, they aren't as eager to give it back

I'll definitely do a search to see what we can come up with...thanks for that tip!
Did you get any further with your decision on the plate(s)?

Amy
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Re: License plates and other car embellishments

Post by Amy » Oct Mon 19, 2015 6:29 pm

I am Sulley wrote:Although you appear to have some fussy officials in your states at least you do get a good choice. Here in the UK the rules are very strict with many plates retained by the Vehicle Licensing Agency for sale at Auctions simply to make money for the Government. On checking I found D15 NEY was sold at auction in October 1999 for £3400 (current exchange rate $5258), obviously much more now!
Oh my goodness! :shock: That's outrageous! Wow ~ you would really have to want that to pay that much wouldn't you? Is that a one time fee then? Or do you have to pay each year? I see several smaller cars, the Fiat 500s for example, with British plates on the front of them here. (Our state, Michigan, and the one directly south of us, Indiana, does not require front and back plates, so a lot of people have old plates from other states on the front. I had a St. John plate on mine for a few years until I parked a bit too close to the snowbank and found it wedged there :lol: I took it off then so I wouldn't lose it somewhere along the road) Anyhow, I wonder if the strict rules are why there are plates to be found over here? They might simply be too much fuss to transfer?

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