Had a co-worker get pulled over this morning. He has a Nissan that he is "fine tuning". The State trooper noticed he did not have a front plate or bracket. Looking back in his history the trooper saw he had been warned before for not having a plate. my co-worker was issued a $150.00 ticket and has to get inspected when his front plate is installed. Be careful out there for MINI's without a front plate.

 

My wife had this problem on her Lexus.

Who wants to drill the front of a Lexus IS 250?

So.....

We got the plate, used Velcro to hold it on, took some pics and she went to court and it was thrown out.

Good luck to your friend.

 

http://www.gominigo.com/

No holes plate brackets for many different vehicles.

SAY NO to drilling holes!!!

 

Johnny O, Yeah I have been through it with the WI State Patrol x2, Wausau PD, and New Glarus PD. I would rather take the fine and no points than have a Lidar target on the front end. Besides the cosmetic reasons, I am not going to provide LEO's with an easy target. 26 years on the road this way, 4 warnings and still taking my chances.

 

No front plate here either.

I don't worry about it. Hell, I've had speeding tickets where the officer still didn't mention it or write up a warning. *shrug*

 

I drove my e90 without a front plate all over Madison/Wisconsin for 1.5 years and never had a problem.

 

conversely, in SF, I had an interesting situation with my Karmann Ghia. The DPT (ticket givers) were coming around the neighborhood at 1-3am and ticketing everyone for revenue gains... stuff like 18" from the curb, wheel turned in, headlight or taillight damage, front plates, tints, etc. They racked up something like 45 tickets in a 3 night window. I started getting tickets for no front plate, and I'd get them nightly. They'd just stack em on there. Finally I used a temp install (hoseclamps and bolts) connecting to the bumper rail, took it for SFPD sign off, and they too marveled at the classless DPT move. Still, I had $140 in fix-it $10 admin fees to deal with (seriously, they were going crazy) which on appeal was knocked down to $40. Again, we're talking a 3 week period.

The take-away isn't to use front plats. I still don't.It's to act fast when you DO get dinged for it.

 

Ditto, but we aren't required to have a front plate nor even issued one.

One of the first things I did, was to remove the cheesy British (BMW ?) plate, and the front bumper/bracket pieces from my MINI.

 

They had a crackdown on dark tinting here. And you didn't just get a ticket. You were prohibited from driving the vehicle, at all, until the tinting was removed. So, you either had to (1) have your vehicle towed or (2) scrape the tining off while parked on the side of the road. The local paper ran a pic of some poor dude scraping this tinting off, while the cop watched in the background.

 

ohhh man that is sooo bad! about the cop making the guys take his tint off......ive been driving around northere virginia with an euro plate instead in the front and i have my plate on my dash.....been like this for two weeks now and no problems

 

I run a front plate on my '02 MCS because the plate holder was already there when I bought the car so it didn't make sense to remove the holder to show off the holes in my bumper. On the other hand, I have a '36 Chevy Std. Coupe Street Rod that I have never run a front plate on and I've owned it since 1991. Four years living in Oklahoma and 15 years in NY and I have never been stopped for no front plate . Hope I haven't just jinked myself on that one.

 

I haven't had a front plate on my MG for thirty years. I've had one warning, twenty years ago!

Dave

 

Well, JohnnyO
I have to admit I am considering putting the front plate on my other car. Been stopped twice in the last 6 mo. just for the plate issue and the WI State Patrol is getting rather unhappy with me saying I'll take care of it. Next time I am sure they will ticket me if it is not installed. Jee how much are the laser jammers running these days? Still no stops in the MINI for not having a plate installed.

 

So far I have been lucky while running without a front plate. I asked a local LEO and was told that they really don't get too concerned about the lack of the plate in front however, he also told me the State Patrol would really prefer that a car has those butt ugly front plates on a car or ticket time.

 

When I purchased my 11 MCS I was explicit in telling them not to drill a mount (I think to the point that they were a little scared...).

No issues yet, but I'll admit that I'm pretty cognizant of the lack of a plate whenever a cop goes by.

Good luck to everyone in the same situation.

 

More to this point, I noticed when I purchased my car that 3-4 tiny dent marks were in the front bumper to mark where the license plate holder would go. Is this normal?

 

Yes, that's normal.

Dave

 

I wish they weren’t there for cosmetic purpose but some states require front plates so they need the locator dimples for mounting the license plate....thank God Tennessee don’t require front plates. I am an engineer within the automotive industry, this is standard practice to use locating dimples on injection mold parts.

 

Just imagine all the horror stories we'd hear about unevenly mounted dealer plate holders if this wasn't the case!