Tauranga City Council will discuss a redesign of its parking ticket warning notices after a customer service notice upset a motorist.

The woman owner found a ticket on her car windscreen on Thursday that appears to be for an unregistered vehicle.

A friendly warning looking like a $200 ticket.

The car is registered until Sunday, and she had already purchased a new registration.

It was an upsetting experience, especially as she didn't initially see the writing along the bottom of the ticket stating it was a warning notice.

City transportation manager Martin Parkes concedes it does look like an infringement notice, but it's intended as a friendly reminder.

'It's not our plan to go out and give tickets to people if we can give them a bit of a heads up that their rego is coming up for renewal,” says Martin.

'It's part of the customer service. We just want to give people a bit of a heads up, that if they forget they could potentially get a ticket.

'We are trying to be customer-focused. We are not out to try and upset anybody. We are trying to improve the customer focus of the parking side of the business.”

Martin says there is no intention to cause distress and the warning is intended to alert people to the fact there registration is coming up.

'It's just a really a friendly reminder that's what it should be.”

Martin says they will discuss a re-design of the warning notice next week.

'It does look like an infringement notice, that's something we can look at as part of our normal business,” says Martin.

The notices are printed out of the ticket printer and contain the same information as a ticket, giving vehicle year, make and model, plus the fact the infringement will attract a $200 fine.