Total UK new car registrations for September are likely to be down by a quarter compared to the last pre-recession September plate-change.

The official SMMT figures are not released until next Tuesday but an industry source told AM he expects registrations to show a 2.3% dip on September 2008's results, unless there is a significant push on the final few trading days.

That would mean a total new car market of around 322,000 units.

However, when compared to the pre-recession 57-plate launch month, when 419,290 cars were registered in September 2007, the total decline amounts to 23%.