My 2021 BMW i3S is riding dirty. As it’s registered in California, it is required to wear a front license plate, but I haven’t installed one yet. Why? Because unlike on my old Jeeps, which had provisions for a front plate that required just a few bolts going into already-existing holes, my BMW i3 does not come from the factory with holes for the front plate. You have to drill them. And even if I used a tow-hook mount instead, the car just wouldn’t look right.
I find myself continually contemplating whether I want to sell my mint condition, Galvanic Gold BMW i3S and replace it with a much cheaper ($20K cheaper) one that I can use without worry about scratches or dings or my child’s vomit. Anyway, this has me on the prowl for a less expensive, but still good-condition i3, and unfortunately my search is really going nowhere because I have a tough requirement: I don’t want the car to have a front license plate.
I realize that this is all a bit silly and I shouldn’t care as much as I do, but come on: How could I not care about whether my car has a bunch of holes drilled haphazardly right into it face?
The Holes Look Rough
Seriously, here’s how my current i3S looks, front bumper still factory-fresh:
Meanwhile, here’s a cheaper-but-still-nice 2018 BMW i3 with the interior I like and an overall condition I’d categorize as “excellent” aside from that one flaw:
I know I’m being a bit picky here, but also, maybe I’m not? These are poorly drilled holes through the plastic that makes up a car’s face! To me, this is as bad as if someone backed their trailer hitch into a car and left a big gash.
More egregious than that i3 is this Lexus RZ I recently saw posted to a Facebook group I’m in:
YIKES! Looks like that thing took on machine gun fire!
And I know, I know, one could just chuck the front plate on and cover up these holes, but I’d know they’re there. And also, if I lived in a front plate-free state, those holes would be especially annoying.
The truth is, cars rarely look as good with plates on their faces, though I get that the rules are the rules. I just wish modern cars weren’t designed to be drilled into, as the operation is permanent.
Back In The Day, This Wasn’t A Problem
And the thing is, it wasn’t always that way! Take my Jeep Comanche, for example. The factory front license plate frame mounted via bolts to the bottom of the front bumper:
Modern bumpers are plastic, though, so self-tapping screws have become the norm.
Tesla May Be The Only Major Automaker That Doesn’t Require Bumper Drilling
To be sure, Tesla is the one manufacturer I can think of whose front plate installation process actually avoids use of screws. Here are the automaker’s instructions for front plate bracket installation:
Check out the Toyota Prius below, whose front end has a strange plate provision that looks bizarre if you’re in a no-plate state. Jason Torchinsky pointed this out a while ago, writing:
Why, Toyota? For the roughly half of U.S. states that don’t require a front plate, do they really have to have a bumper that looks like someone jammed a brick in there and then painted over it? Perhaps this is the Euro/Asia bumper skin and the U.S.-market one will have something that works with or without a front plate? That’s possible, I suppose, and at least they considered the front plate at all, which some cars just don’t at all. But still.
Instead of designing the car’s shape around a flat license plate, Tesla has created license plate brackets that conform to the vehicle’s shape, and instead of installing the bracket with screws, one installs it using adhesive.
Image: ToyotaThis might make you think that removing the plates will destroy the car’s paint; looks like taking a Tesla’s bracket off involves simply using a plastic trim tool, though some owners say a hairdryer and some fishing line helps, too:
Reading around the web, while some report stains from dirt entrapment, it seems most who have tried removing their front plate bracket have managed to do so without damaging the paint (especially if they used heat and fishing line), so this seems like a good solution from Tesla. Props to the company for not requiring drilling into that front bumper to mount the factory bracket.
The Aftermarket Is Still The Answer
There are often adhesive-plate-bracket options in the aftermarket as well, and as shown above, I can buy an i3 front plate mount that hooks to the threaded tow-hook hole under the little square plug in the front bumper. What’s more, California actually allows a front license plat vinyl wrap, which I find rather clever:
I may go this route on my car. If I keep it.
Anyway, thank you for reading my random rant about an industry norm that bothers me to no end.
I agree. First off, front plates are ugly and stupid.
But it actually is insane that auto manufacturers obsess over how a car looks, then provide no front plate provisions. They leave it to some Ryobi armed teenager at the dealership to permanently damage their product before their consumer even makes a purchase.
Local constabulary needs the front plate for automated camera writing infractions….$$$
Forget the front plate. Every state needs a back plate but there still are cars being sold here that require the dealership employees to drill the back bumper on a brand new car.
This is my biggest pet peeve in automotive design. The fact that BMW designed the most hateful front grill of modern times and then failed to allow for a front plate is probably the most egregious lack of form follows function I’ve seen. Alfa is also pretty guilty here too. As far as I know, the EU all require front plates so they know there are going to be front plates on these grilles, even if they are shaped differently than the american ones.
I’m sorry but I would never mount a metal license plate to the front of my car with double-sided tape.
The nightmarish paperwork required if you lose or damage a plate here is not worth drilling 4 holes you’ll never ever see again.
This is ridiculous. Just put your front plate on the dashboard like every other jagoff that is too precious to comply with the law.
Alfa Romeo does it right. Their official front license plate holder connects to the tow hook, no drilling required. Comes off just as easily for states without the requirement.
I figured some of the lower-volume automakers (especially supercar companies) had a setup like this. I dig it.
You’re a Stellantis guy, you should have seen this coming!
And you should have known that Alfa is moving away from it, too.
I did this when I had a MKV GTI. Was an aftermarket unit, but easy enough to be a nonissue.
That’s changing to a symmetric mounting for pedestrian / crash testing reasons.
The Alfa Junior’s is in the center (and low mount, like a mini snow plow).
Just my experience: The cops don’t seem to bother any of my sports cars sans front plates in California. I have been popped twice for ‘normal’ cars. As a solid example, I can’t think of many C4 or C5 Corvettes that have have drilled holes and a plate up there. There are tens of thousands of these things running around southern California.
My C4 has a pop-out placeholder for a front plate. Like this. I think it looks fine with the license plate.
See, Tesla’s solution is great in concept… until you actually try to put their adhesive plate on. Tesla gives you no mounting guides at all, and their bumper doesn’t have any obvious center points. Now that I’ve mentioned it you won’t unsee it- basically no Tesla front plates are perfectly straight or centered.
…and then the adhesive fails and it falls off. Adhesives are not permanent solutions, especially on the exterior.
3M VHB tape is used to hold on exterior trim on tons of vehicles.
I’ve used it as well for a lot of things. Occasionally they fall off. I’m probably not applying it as well as the factory can.
…but would you trust the average Tesla owner to do a great job.
I installed one of those OEM holders on my wife’s Model Y. It look me a long time to figure out where to place it so it didn’t look bad. I’m too scared to look at how centered and out of level it is.
At least with the Subaru ownership badges, there is a paper template available to cut out help install them level.
I live in a front plate state but I’ve been riding dirty without them on my fun cars for a long time so it appears to not be heavily enforced. If I had to I’d grab a stick on plate holder and mount it long enough to deal with the ticket then remove it.
My latest car has a glue-on mount for the front and I am very tempted to remove it. It’s not terribly objectionable the way it’s mounted but I still don’t like it. I’m probably just being difficult, as I often am.
Wait, didn’t you already have a cheaper i3 with a brand new battery that wasn’t good enough?
… he sure did…
But it wasn’t gold so it was garbage apparently.
Actually, I quite liked that car. Nothing wrong with its color, though the 75 mi of range wasn’t ideal.
IDK about the brand new ones, but Audi has some clever no drill solutions to the front plate.
A few years ago I leased a Fiesta ST, but it had to be delivered from another dealership. I live in a rear plate only state. My one stipulation, which I made sure was written down, was that they do not put the dealership front plate on, because I did not want to see the holes. Luckily it arrived with no holes, and I took delivery of it, but I was willing to deny it if they put holes in the bumper.
Here in Idaho, we also require front plates, but it seems like it is rarely enforced. An attorney friend of mine thought his vanity plates exempted him from the requirement, but I pointed out to him (and I am not an attorney) that “Custom Vehicle Plates,” as defined in statute, are a specific type of plate available for custom vehicles. Once corrected, he decided to keep running without front plates and just fight it if he got ticketed. He still hasn’t been, and it has been several years. Perhaps cops don’t bother when they see the plate clearly belongs to an attorney (I forget what it says, but it’s OBJCTN or something similarly obvious).
It’s been a long while since I lived there, but the only time I ever got stopped for no front plate was with a friend out late on Halloween. They just use it as an excuse to make stops for other suspected reasons, essentially.
Absolutely. If, say, someone were going to Ontario regularly, I suspect they’d get stopped for no front plate pretty frequently.
Cops rarely even enforce for expired tabs or completely lacking plates unless they want to pull someone over for something else.
There is a lot to criticize about my state when it comes to automotive laws and regulations, but the fact that we don’t have front plates is a massive plus
My new to me Prius PHEV came from a state with front plates. I removed the bracket and now have four unsightly holes in the front bumper. I purchased some little plastic plugs, painted them with touch up paint, and shoved them into the holes. Because the car only had 6050 miles, I had PPF applied and assumed that would protect them. During the detailing prior to applying the PPF, the touch up paint came off and the installer said they needed to be removed to allow the PPF to lay properly.
You don’t want to use a tow hook mount because “it wouldn’t look right”. I don’t get it, are you ok with a plate at all? If so, use the tow hook. If not, then you’re doing nothing.
Not looking right, I think, is a complaint that cars are not designed for front plates. I believe this is valid, as nearly 60% (29) of states require them.
Since California allows stick-on plates this seems to be a non-issue,IMO.
It’s a shame they don’t allow you to put it in the windshield, maybe in the passenger side bottom corner. I guess that would be too high up and too difficult to read?
Maybe it’s the native Californian in me, but I don’t get the issue. Drill the holes. The plate’s never coming off again, so you’ll never have to look at them.
Yes exactly. This feels like obsessing over something that just doesn’t matter.
Two words: “Farm Use.”
I ran into the same conundrum when I bought my BMW. Like you, I wasn’t big on drilling into the face of my bumper, and the tow hook options I didn’t like because of the off-center positioning and I have weird OCD. I found a solution that didn’t have me drilling into the face of my front bumper, it mounts below the bumper. https://stonsho.com/
Wrong take, I think. We should just mandate front plates and be done with it. When it’s required, I find I care an awful lot less how it looks because, well, what are you gonna do?
We should mandate no front plates and be done with it.
So say we all!
Look for a non-EUV-body Bolt instead of a cheaper i3!
The Bolt always reminds me of the production version that the i3 was the prototype of, plus you get four real doors and I think the front plate mounts to the (usually) black plastic lower “grille”.
Sure the i3’s interior won design awards while the Bolt…is a Chevy. But you won’t have to worry so much about Delmar getting peanut butter and jelly smeared into the hard plastic door cards.
If I’d never driven an i3, this would be a great solution. But going from my i3 to my brother’s Bolt is…tricky. Also, I don’t want to give up my EREV!
(Love the Bolt though).
What about a used Ioniq 5 or 6? The 6 is probably cheaper. They drive quite well! Not to mention they charge super fast and have a ton of range.
The number of “automotive grade adhesive” trim bits that get torn off in the winter, I’m surprised that I’ve not seen more Teslas missing front plate mounts here.
Maybe it’s because it’s easy to be reattached after it’s been ripped off from an unplowed road?
Here in Idaho, we require front plates but it’s rarely enforced, so I see a ton of Teslas without front plates. Dunno if they tried them and they got torn off or they just ignore the requirement.
Erm… the i3 is an European car. All European cars require front number plates. Just use whatever the OEM solution is?
I ain’t drilling!
Why?
The plate hides the holes anyway.
Take it to the dealer for factory finish? 😛
Nothing pisses me off more than paying a “professional” premium money for sub par workmanship.
That’s like pretending you can hang all your paintings and picture frames with double-sided tape because you don’t want to drill your pristine walls.
Trust me, you’ll wake up at 2am thinking someone broke in when the first picture frame falls.
Just drill the damn holes man. Our new Volvo EV needed the holes, so the dealer did the dirty work, installed the bracket and in 2 years I stopped thinking about that until now.
The red 3M automotive tape is incredibly strong. I wouldn’t worry about it.
https://stonsho.com/ This is a great solution. Even in a front plate state, the dealer said they never drill the bumper on a Blackwing, so I was able to do this and give 5-0 one less reason to notice me.
Hang it off some zip ties threaded through the grill. Solved.
Sounds like its time to buy a 3D scanner and printer, if you don’t have one already.
Once you start CAD work, you’ll always return to it somehow.
Just go with the vinyl sticker plate
The vinyl plate is a great solution. Still uglying up the front, but vastly preferable to the screw-on ones.
When I had a C6 Vette, you could buy brackets that 3M taped inside the front grill. Looked better than tacking it above, but blocked some airflow.
I’ll report back on that vinyl sticker plate!