Should I buy a used car or a new car?

If a car owner would like to buy personalised plates, they tend to cost around €12 more than standard ones, depending on the region. Personalised plates must be applied for and must conform to the standards above. Car owners can choose certain numbers or letters instead of the random ones at the end. For example, people living in the town of Pirna might choose PIR-AT 77, "Pirat" being the German for "pirate"; another favourite is BAR-BQ 777 for Barnim, and WI-KI 777 would be a hit in Wiesbaden. Kiel is one of few places (others are Lauf, Regen, Daun, Brake, Baden or Ulm) where the number plate can be the city name: 'KI-EL' (KI-LL is also often seen). This works for the town of Heide in Dithmarschen, too, where HEI-DE is possible. Around Schwäbisch Hall (SHA) you can often see cars with the licence reading SHA-RK. Another possibility which many people choose is a combination of their initials followed by their year of birth, e.g. Peter Meyer born in April 1957 could try to get PIR-PM 57 or PIR-PM 457 when registering a car in Pirna. Almost every available combination with S-EX .... in Stuttgart and SE-X and SE-XY in Segeberg is in use as well. Also, some people choose a combination which reflects their car type, like BAR-T 601 for a Trabant 601 or BAR-TT 1 for an Audi TT. In Berlin, combinations like B-MW 1234 are common among owners of BMW cars. Other popular self-referential license plates include P-KW 000 in Potsdam and K-FZ 000 in Cologne: PKW is the German abbreviation for Personenkraftwagen ("car") and KFZ for Kraftfahrzeug ("motor vehicle"). The city offering the most possible combinations on license plates is Duisburg, which abbreviates to DU on license plates. Combinations such as DU-KE, DU-NE, DU-DE or even more insulting combinations such as DU-NG and DU-MB, as well as a number of German words, can be seen at every street corner in Duisburg. Danish citizens living in Darmstadt enjoy the combination DA-NE.