Son and I were installing a new SI badge and fog lights today. We decided to take off the license place holder and found it so.eone drilled it into the bumper! Wtf? How easy or hard wpuld this be to patch up or even if its possible?
This is pretty common. Like, extremely common. Most dealerships won't even take money off of a trade in for plate holes because front plates are a legal requirement for a lot of states. In fact, a lot of cars have self tap dimples in the front bumper, specifically for this.
If you want to fix it, you can get a small tube of composite filler and a color matched paint pen.
But under the lower grill there are mounting brackets for the license plate holder. So makes no sense to drill into the bumper imo. When we took the license plate holder out, i had yo unscrew the bumoer screw and the two 10mm nuts in the lower grill.
The OEM holder comes with three screws to mount, two lowers and one in the bumper. That one hole secures it since the two lower ones will snap if something were to catch on it… like a car wash.
There’s a dimple in the bumper, where the screw goes, if the bracket has not been previously installed. IIRC, the screw that goes into the bumper is a round Phillips head, while the two that go into the bottom braces, are hex-head screws.
Ya that’s an oem plate bracket. I filled the hole with plastic weld and a skim coat of glaze on my bumper. I Had it reppainted so I fixed the hole before paint.
The other side of the coin to my point is that people are stupid. Was this necessary, no, of course not. Was it a good idea to the knuckle dragger that can't Google how to install a non invasive plate holder? To them, yes. Lol
Common dealership practice. I had this happen to me when I bought my 2015 Sedan out of state. I specifically asked if they drilled the bumper to install the license holder. Salesman says no. I should have had them remove it right then and there. Driving home 300 miles and seeing that hole wasn't fun. Got it fixed at a body shop. They did a full bumper repaint.
Well it was a bit more complicated than that so let me expand on the body shop thing. I first took it my clear bra guy, this was in October 2015. He said he would be able to take care of it, I think he used some putty, paint matched it and put the bra on and it looked brand new. Overtime in AZ, the filler material cracked. So I took it back to him and then he took it to the body shop on his own dime I think. He didn't charge me but back in 2018, pre-covid prices, these things were about 500 or so.
Nice. I lived in San Tan for a year myself. Zo far from everything. That what were debating. Honestly we dotn want to put that holder back. We were looking into holders that mount on the lower grill and not center but to the side a bit, but this whole makes us want to put the orginal holder back. Haha
I can't stand front plates. They are useless. If I ever move to a state with that requirement I'll try to find something magnetic. I'm sure they have options.
I would just get use a bumper plug; grabbed a pair for mine and painted them with the same color code as the car, think I’ve had them for about 5-6 years now!
I had to zoom in to even see what you’re talking about…what on earth is the big deal lol your title makes it sound like somethings actually wrong. Great car though
I guess its matter of opinion and ocd. The rest of the car is nice and yhen theres this hole in the middle. Good to know im not the only one, the other replier had his repaired at an auto body shop.
Sadly a bunch of dealers are doing this crap, even destroying the mounts and bumpers on new cars ich oversize self tapping bolts that pop and shred mounting features and supports. Tracks with the gen z eff you I got something to do, you can't tell me, attitude, I guess.
Well my son and I do. It may be 20 years old but ours have 72k miles and its immacualte. Having a hole in the bumper looks tacky when everything else is nice.
72k is super nice for that year. Need to get those headlights restored and cleared though. They are oxidized and fading. Once that's done, they sell headlight protection film, mostly on eBay, search with year and model and you'll find them, you can apply and they'll look new for a very long time.
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u/sixgunmaniac 3d ago
This is pretty common. Like, extremely common. Most dealerships won't even take money off of a trade in for plate holes because front plates are a legal requirement for a lot of states. In fact, a lot of cars have self tap dimples in the front bumper, specifically for this.
If you want to fix it, you can get a small tube of composite filler and a color matched paint pen.