NSW car rego lapse

Hello fellow savings-savvy OzBargainers, I want your thoughtful advice.
I have a car and a motorcycle which are both nearly 3 months out of rego. I got my driving license suspended in July for speeding (mea culpa… this mistake has massively ruined my life) and it will be suspended until mid-January 2020.
One uncertainty is that I have a court date in mid-November to try to get my licence back by appeal in the District Court. I may be successful, I may be unsuccessful. I am hoping for the former, but I've seen the duty barrister and it's not looking good.

My dilemma is that I'm trying to weigh up the options:
[Option 1]: Pay the rego renewal now, pay for green slip. But then I will only get 9 months out of this (at most). If I don't get my licence back, I won't use it until mid-January 2020 and I will only get 6 months out of this.

[Option 2]: Let the rego lapse. Then pay for new rego, new green slip, AND new plates AND blue slip. I get a full year's use out of this.

[Option 3]: is there some sort of other loophole where I can avoid paying rego/fees when I already know I'm not allowed to use the car? I just feel weird paying for something I know I can't use.

The motorcycle rego will be 3m out of rego (and automatically cancelled) on 27 September.
The car rego will be be 3m out of rego (and automatically cancelled) on 11 December.

People who are financially smarter than me — please calculate and think about it - what should I do?

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EDITS [2]

EDIT 1/2: I'm BFFs with my car mechanic. Sometimes I even just go in to bring food and hang out and talk about cars, which is a passion of mine. He would definitely pass my blue slips — and the cars are in perfect shape, to be fair.

EDIT 2/2: I have made the spreadsheet as advised. The way to evaluate the answer is to choose the lowest price per day, right? The results are:

—-BIKE—-
[OPTION 1]
Price/day if lucky in court: $2.00 for 227 days
Price/day at worst case scenario: $2.74 for 165 days

[OPTION 2]
Price/day if wait: $1.48 for 365 days

—-CAR—-
[OPTION 1]
Price/day if lucky in court: $3.91 for 227 days
Price/day at worst case scenario: $5.38 for 165 days

[OPTION 2]
Price/day if wait: $2.91 for 365 days

Comments

  • Put options 1 and 2 into a spreadsheet to determine your overall costs and divide it by how long you will be able to use the car for. Then you can make a better call on what you will do.

    Option 3 is not an option.

    • Hey thanks for this idea. I have made the spreadsheet. The way to evaluate the answer is to choose the lowest price per day, right? The results are:

      —-BIKE—-
      [OPTION 1]
      Price/day if lucky in court: $2.00 for 227 days
      Price/day at worst case scenario: $2.74 for 165 days

      [OPTION 2]
      Price/day if wait: $1.48 for 365 days

      —-CAR—-
      [OPTION 1]
      Price/day if lucky in court: $3.91 for 227 days
      Price/day at worst case scenario: $5.38 for 165 days

      [OPTION 2]
      Price/day if wait: $2.91 for 365 days

      I feel kind of stressed and brain-dead. In both cases I would choose Option 2, which would be price-point superior, and in no way inferior, right?

      • Yes option 2 makes more sense because you would be getting better value for your money.

        The downside is obviously your car and bike can't be used while out of rego (say if someone else wanted to use it).

        • +2

          Okay, great, thanks for teaching and confirming.

          It's alright, my friends have their own cars and bikes. I leap at any chance to reject requests to borrow my cars. Last time there was a bit of a water leak in the convertible and my friend didn't put on the rain cover like I told her. Then she didn't blow-dry it fully and a mildew smell developed and I had to blow-dry it myself for an hour. I was really mad for all of these discoveries and vowed never to do a good deed in allowing my cars to be borrowed.

  • I would go Option 1 even if you lost a couple hundred - I've found that option 2 to be more difficult and frustrating trying to get your vehicles back to road worthy - I guess it depends on your relationship with the Mechanic certifying the blue slip.

    • My personal experience.
      Mechanic in Coffs Harbour whom I knew, lost his drivers license for DUI. He was subsequently stripped of his RMS accreditation to do inspections as he couldn’t drive.
      You never know what the future holds. I’d personally just keep the vehicles registered to circumvent future possibilities.
      However, you will obviously have future other expenses headed your way (fines/legal/suspension) so I can’t advise in relation to those.
      I wish you well, fellow OzBargainer.

  • -4

    Best option is, don't speed.

    So far you have lost almost a combined 6 months rego and greenslip.

    Best option was to have cancelled rego and greenslip when you lost your licence. You would have had some money refunded to you.

    BUT. Having to pass a blue slip can be a nightmare. Everything has to be at least 99.9% correct on your bike and car.

  • Just put 6 months rego on both, then see how the court case goes.

    NSW Greenslip prices for 6 months here - https://www.greenslips.nsw.gov.au/

  • Register the car and make it available on car sharing if its ok.

    If its not then it probably would be suss when it comes to blue slip, so register it anyway.

    • Ooooh, that's a clever idea! I would do it if I didn't treasure my cars the way I do. I can't bear the idea of someone driving them roughly or doing burn-outs or messing up the wheel alignment or driving it stupidly in tiptronic-manual transmission, revving it hard or scratching the custom wrap or driving it obnoxiously in Bondi where everyone knows my car (it's very distinctive) and thinks it's me… it goes on…

      • can't bear the idea of someone driving them roughly or doing burn-outs or messing up the wheel alignment or driving it stupidly in tiptronic-manual transmission, revving it hard or scratching the custom wrap or driving it obnoxiously

        Or speeding in it…….

        • +2

          Yeah! There's already one retard speeding in it — we don't need another one :D

      • +2

        tiptronic transmission is a generic automatic that allows you to shift up or down.. my Camry has that

        • I know. I wrote tiptronic-manual with the intention to communicate that it is not a true manual car, it is a tiptronic car capable of becoming manual, but still not fully manual (because there is no clutch), so it is just "tiptronic manual". Those are the words I can come up with to describe that situation.

          I'm afraid of people putting it in the manual mode, and then trying to drive in high RPM. I would not like that being done to my car.

  • Blue slip inspection is much more onerous than pink slip. Unless your vehicles are ‘new’ and in fantastic condition don’t let the rego lapse.

    I’ve currently got a caravan out of rego, just haven’t made time to re resgisterbit, but I will definitely be getting it done before it needs a blue slip. Wish there was a way to hold over the rego for a month or two then get a full 12 months once renewed but it isn’t he way it works

  • You're aware that if you renew the rego today for 6/12 months, it will be backdated to whenever it ran out originally lapsed. Your cost per day calculations look like they've assumed that if you renew today, you'll get 12 months from today - which you won't

    • +1

      Hey, thanks for the reminder. Yes I have indeed taken that into account - that's why I've said 227 days and 165 days instead of 365 days. For example, for Bike/Option1/Lucky-in-court, that ends up being $2.00 per day for 227 days. Meaning I am paying a total cost of $452.80 to ride the bike until June 27, 2020 (from my hypothetical lucky court date of 13 November, that is a time period of 227 days). That works out to be $2.00 per day for those 227 days. After the 227 days, I pay a normal price once again.

    • I know this is the case for licences but isn't it different for rego after a certain amount of time has passed?

      • +1

        No, it is really stupid. For example if your rego expired in June, and you renew in September, you pay the full fee and this takes you until June.

        If you wait longer than 3 months (e.g. past September, in my case), the rego gets cancelled, you return the plates, you pay blue slip, you pay for new plates.

  • -1

    Just drive with no license that's what a true bargain hunter would do

    • +4

      :O I would not dare… I have instead gotten an electric skateboard and fallen off A LOT. I did not know there were so many ways to fall off a skateboard. XD

      • I have instead gotten an electric skateboard…

        If one day you come across an arsehole cop, you could be staring at fines for driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the fines are bigger than those related to the "driving while suspended" offences.

    • +1

      I hope you are just joking.

      Pardon this reaction if that was the case

      How can driving without a license be a bargain?

      1. Fines are great
      2. Probably increase the time suspended
      3. And the big one, your insurance is invalid if you are involved in an accident - that in itself is no bargain.

      At least OP has good sense here.

      • I was playing as we are on a bargain site and op is asking about on to get most out of $
        I don't get why you are going to court If you are already suspended? When you appeal a fine you are saying your not guilty so you still have a license unless you are going to appeal for a work type license

  • -2

    If you lost your license for that long your a goose and let’s hope you don’t get it back ffs.

  • Other thing you might have to factor in is your greenslip costs when you answer “yes” to having lost your license if you get fresh registration.

    You can’t drive them anyway, so there is no point in re-registering them. If you were getting your license back in a month or so and knew that for a fact, go for it. But if it’s still 3 more months away and your court date outcome is uncertain, just wait till you know your outcome and get fresh rego when your suspension is up.

    The only extra costs with getting the rego done again is a blue slip instead of a pink slip and a $50 (or there about) plate fee. You have lost more than that with letting it go over by 3 months already..

    • Yeah, true. It makes sense when you say it like that.

      The court date is in a month from now, and by that time it won't matter that much what the outcome is. Even if it's a no, I'll only suffer 2 more months without the cars. And what's 2 more months when I've already done 4…

      Normally, I don't think I would have had to get a pink slip, because the vehicles are quite new. And for my black-and-white plate it's $110 to replace. But according to my calculations above, it's still more economical to start over.

      • Yes you are right its 5 years before pink or blue slip is required.

        As for plates, you can just put them in storage and release when the car gets registered again. Again you know how to do the math to see if this is worthwhile. (factor in that if they determine the plates are damaged you might need these remade - of course at a cost to you)

        Reserve plates: $59, annual fee. Note: Any applicable special plate fees still apply while plates are reserved.

        BTW you can only store them if the rego is less than 3 months expired, so you may need to act fast if this works out the better deal

        • Yes, that was an option I was going to suggest as well is putting the plates you have in storage and reusing them again when you get the car registered again. It may work out cheaper to keep your plates on hold and get them back on the same car.

          It’s $59/year to store them (no prorata/discount for less time) and $28 to move them (may not have to pay this to put them back on the same car.)

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