DVLA petition

[benb]

• Are you building a car and having difficulties with the DVLA?
• Have you built one already and found the DVLA made life very difficult?
• Does your experience of registering a car after SVA put you off building another?

If so,please consider visiting

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/kitcarreg/

and joining our petition.
The current situation is so variable from one local office to the other. A month on from passing SVA and I'm still getting nothing but the run-around from the local DVLA office.
The plan is to get as many signatures as possible, then go to the main manafactuers and STATUS to get their support, then present the petition to the DVLA, DfT and Ministers. It's in the interest of the kit manafacturers to support this petition- people are put off from building kits due to the hassle from the DVLA....
To that end, please post this on to other forums or e-mail to non-forum readers that have a vested interest!
I don't have a problem with SVA because it makes cars safer but months of procrastination whilst the DVLA make stupid decisions really takes the mic. e.g. DVLA examiner stating that my car will pay motorbike road tax because its got a motorbike engine in it!!!
BTW, it appears DVLA local office @ Nottingham and Luton are quite reasonable but it's best getting in contact before getting too far into the building. It's just a shame I started in the build in Nottingham and then moved to London, were the nearest DVLA office is Ealing & Borehamwood who are useless !#?$*

Ben

[EddyP]

It is very very difficult to contact the local office, but i vistited them in person with all my documents. The girl at the Birmingham office was a real credit to them, she couldnt have been any better.
I passed the SVA Monday morning, monday afternoon visited the office, and got an inspection booked for Thursday afternoon. Sorted it with the girl at the Brum office that id pick all the documents up friday afternoon, and also mentioned to her if possible could i have a plate ending GTR.
Friday afternoon went to the office, all there waiting for me, brand new number, ending GTF so she didnt do bad.
I cant complain about the Birmingham office at all, was really impressed. Swansea however are usless idiots, spoke to them a couple of times the people there obviously hadnt got a clue what they were talking about, which is when i made the decission it was best to visit the brum office in person to try and sort it all out.

[benb]

Glad it worked out for someone! To be honest though, it does seem that some local offices are okay- Luton and Nottingham have a good press, sounds like we can add Birmingham to that.
Others though are pretty damn useless. 2 weeks after my vehicle inspection (at which the engineer simple confirmed the chassis number hadn't changed from when it was tested at the SVA test) I still haven't heard anything. I rang and was told they'd ring me back within a couple of hours- they finally rang me back many hours later to say the engineer still hadn't send his "report" and they're demanding an MOT saying that it shows up things that SVA don't
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr....

Ben

[Ferg]

My car was inspected for 'numbers' prior to SVA and driven by me directly to the DVLA where it was registered and a numberplate allotted within 1 hour of the MAC being put in my hand..........

[mapper]

Well that was very naughty of you Ferg, legally you can only drive it to the sva test centre and back home, or to a place of repair if it fails. and not to DVLA for a build up inspection, Tut tut.
PS my local dvla messed it up a bit, they gave me the donor reg number to start with and then changed it after I had plates made to an age related number

[benb]

Well finally some movement. It appears that the weeks of being nice and asking questions politely was futile. I finally gave in and wrote them a stroppy letter asking exactly why my car needs an MOT considering that it just passed SVA, and why, when it's obvious my car is going to get a Q plate, they want invoices for everything. I also pointed out that my insurance company are going to cancel my non-refundable insurance at the end of the week if I don't supply them with the reg number and, that if that did happen, I'd be going for compensation via the DVLA complaints compensation system. I also said that, although it appeared a fair bit of blame can be laid upon the shoulders of the examiner who 2 weeks after the vehicle examination still hasn't provided his report, that their excuse of "we can't get hold of him until the end of the week" was pretty pathetic and that I had his mobile number if they needed it to get hold of him sooner and tell him to pull his finger out......
Lo and behold, I got a phonecall today saying if I get the cheque and insurance to them tm I should have a reg number by Friday or Monday......

[Ferg]

Originally Posted by mapper

Well that was very naughty of you Ferg, legally you can only drive it to the sva test centre and back home, or to a place of repair if it fails. and not to DVLA for a build up inspection, Tut tut.

That's NOT what the DVLA told me.

I had discussions with them about how to do all this and delivered the car in a trailer to the factory on a Saturday where the kit was manufactured to have the suspension set up and arranged a 'numbers' inspection at the same time. I went back on the Tuesday and drove the car early on the Wednesday to the SVA test and then straight to the DVLA afterwards.
VOSA were aware of the whole process.