Why Pre-Register?

Pre-registered cars become available when one of two things happens, first of all it may be because the manufacturer is struggling to sell a car and they need to get rid before that certain model starts to stockpile. The second instance is when a manufacturer needs to help their dealers to hit any targets. These are the conditions you should be looking for in order to get a good legitimate pre-reg deal, as the manufacturer has authorized it. You can usually tell if the manufacturer has blessed your pre reg deal by the dealers willingness to give you the logbook or V5C certificate. If the dealer is refusing or has some excuse as to why he can’t provide you with the logbook, even if seemingly innocent, you should treat this with great suspicion and walk away.

If a dealer is refusing to give up the logbook for a pre-registered vehicle it is usually because the dealer is trying to do something under the cuff and pull some wool over the manufacturers eyes - remember a pre-registered vehicle is effectively classed as a used car. This happens when a dealer, in effect buys the car themselves, they may have a number of motivations for doing this, such as hitting sales targets and earning bonuses. To stop dealers from pre registering vehicles themselves, and selling them too cheaply (devaluing the brand) the manufactures have a clause which states that the dealer should run that pre-registered vehicle as a demo vehicle for 3-6 months before any resale occurs. Therefore if a dealer breaks that agreement and sells their pre-registered vehicle straight away, they will try and keep hold of the logbook for 3-6 months so they can present the logbook whilst being audited in order to trick the auditor in to believing the dealer hasn’t yet sold the car and is sticking to the terms of the manufacturers agreement. Basically, if anyone is withholding the logbook, they are doing it to trick the manufacturers and the manufacturers are someone who you want on side.