I recently taxed my bike and through the post came a quaint little circle of paper to affix to the bike. A bureaucratic vestige of a bygone time. Now almost every road in the country is under the watchful eye of ANPR cameras, do coppers still look at these little discs? Regardless, it is still an offence to not display one.
Problem #1: My tax disc holder would not open, not even budge. Tried WD40, tried thread free spray, tried everything, stuck fast. 🙁 In the end, seemed easier to just get another tax disc holder. Picked up a basic Oxford one (pictured below) off eBay for a couple of quid.
Problem #2: The hole in the new holder is too small for the existing bolt on the bike and my toolbox lacked appropriate drill bits. So I bolted it to a random fairing bracket which had a convenient hole already there.
Problem #3: Tax disc holder is crap. Just a flimsy rubber band around the edge to hold the disc in place. Kept coming open every time I took the cover off the bike and brushed past it. A couple of times (by luck) I found the disc on the floor outside, long after I put the bike away. The seal is crap too, the holder is full of damp.
So at last, I purchased another tax disc holder (off eBay), one with the correct size hole, is solid and has bolts holding it together. It is also of the Oxford brand (pictured top), but a much better one. The little alan bolts are a bit fiddly, but then you don’t want it too easy to get into, lest a tea leaf takes a fancy. It’s also anodised in a fetching blue, which almost matches the bike.
