http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37795068

I've noticed a lot of 'personalised' plates recently, enough to make me wonder...

I've read the article and can't really work out what the "problem" is.

I don't really understand cars in general TBH...

Pre-registration of cars inflates 'true' car sales figures so it distorts the perceived buoyancy of the market - if the official sales figures are stating that sales are X but in fact the real level of sales is X less 20% with the 20% being generated by 'sales' form a deal to itself or a manufacturer to itself then you have a false impression of how healthy the market is.
Car sales are one of the measures of the health of the economy as a whole so if they are being artificially inflated then the economy may in fact be less healthy than it appears.

The're nothing wrong with buying a pre-reg car - they usually represent a significant saving over the new price but they buyer needs to be aware of a number of factors:
- They won't be the first owner of the vehicle so second hand/resale value is impacted
- Depending on how long the dealer or manufacturer has been sitting on the car a chunk of the original 'new' warranty period will have gone - your 'new car may only have 2.5 years of manufacturer warranty left instead of 3 for example.
- You can't tailor the car to your chosen spec as you would if you were buying new.
A nice big up front saving can off-set the first two and if the third was really that important you probably wouldn't be looking at a pre-reg anyway.

You can save as much as pre-reg buy buying a new car through an online broker anyway.

When I bought my Golf, I looked for ex-demo/pre-reg cars because the cost saving was around 10%. I've kept the car for eight years now. The only thing I'd point out now is to get the spec you want. Retrofitting stuff is a pain in the backside and can cost more than if factory fitted (though not always).

Also agree - places like carwow, orange wheels, drive the deal etc get great prices for the spec you want.

We went pre-reg with the Pulsar and Qashqai.

The Pulsar had 14km on the clock and was a better spec than we wanted - it had some extras we didn't want, but was still around 10% cheaper than the spec we wanted.

The Qashqai had 1000km and we saved just under 20%. Again it had more extras than we would have specified.

In both cases we had to take the navigation system - the dealer does around 98% of its pre-reg cars with navigation, because it dramatically affects the second hand resale value. With cheap satnavs and smartphones, the built-in systems are a waste of money, especially as you can buy a decent TomTom or Navigon system with lifetime updated for the price of a single annual update from the dealer! But it is built in and it does a good job - until the maps become too old, it is better having the builtin system, especially as it displays the directions in the middle of the instrument cluster, so you don't need to look at the radio or wherever you have mounted your smartphone or external nav system.