356driver

Well after more than a year I finally wimped out and mounted the front license plate on my Cayenne TT. Reasons are:

- More and more cities in California are ticketing (real tickets, not fixits) for missing front license plate because of the spread of photographic red light enforcement.

- I'm bound to be pulled over sometime soon in this beast, I just can't keep it below 80 on the freeway

- Last month an LA motorcycle cop gave the front of my Cayenne the stink eye but fortunately it was in a shopping center parking lot at the time

Since I've had a year to think about it I wanted to share what I did rather than the standard "right in front of the grille" factory placement. The license plate bracket is stock but turned upside down. The lower portion is supported by nylon spacers. I hope this will give you some thoughts if you feel the need to mount your front license plate.

By the way, some might question whether the angle of the plate is legal. From my reading of the California Vehicle Code there is nothing that says the plate must be vertical. My mounting has it angled back about 30 degrees and it visible from the front as seen below.

MBailey

I never(25 years) mount front plates. I got a ticket several years ago for $100. In Texas you wont get pulled over very often for it. As far as legality of your mount, I dont see that you had much choice. You used the mount provided and complied the best you could...

skl

I suppose if I HAD to mount the plate (if the state trooper was standing over me with a gun) I'd do like you did. We're supposed to have them here in Iowa but I can bring myself to ruin the looks of any of my cars and do it. I get stopped about once a year and consider that the price to pay. A female neighbor of mine with a Lexus coupe never runs a plate on her car and has never been stopped in over 6-7 years. Go figure... If I had the Turbo, I sure wouldn't cover up the big grill opening!!

Raptor

356: I mounted afront plate one time ) - on my XKE when Texas first permitted personalized plates, and then only 'cause the plate read "JAGUAR." However, I just mounted a front plate on my wife's new Jeep GC (she expressed indifference). Nevertheless, your front plate actually looks rather nice.Good job!

pdxjim

356: What type of screw/attachment did you use to attach? I just went out and took my normally mounted plate off to see if I could switch it and there are two screw receptacles for the stock mount. Would like to do it your way. Definitely like your way.

24FPS

fwiw: it does not look bad @ all. actually nice that it tucks a bit too.

btw: in socal the cops let us slide b/c they like to have the free "probable cause"

356driver

Thanks for the comments so far. To repeat, I went a year before caving in and then only because of the stories of more stringent enforcement in SoCal. There are certain cities that have camera red-light enforcement and they are making a big deal out of not being able to identify cars with the front plate missing. So now their police are enforcing the front license plate requirement. In Southern California all the cities run together so you can't easily avoid the ones that are starting to step up enforcement.

Also for those of you who are not Californians, traffic fines in this state get bumped by a number of multipliers so a $25 ticket ends up costing something like $162. (That's three tanks of gas!)

What convinced me was when an LA mtorcycle cop pointedly inspected the front of my car, although he couldn't write a ticket because it was in a private parking lot. Ironically, this week news got out that the City of Los Angeles has had their red-light cameras turned off for several months due to a contract dispute with the company that inspects the pictures and processes the citations.

For those interested I will share details on I did the mounting. Frankly it is somewhat crude because I don't have any of the OEM screws or inserts. Instead I just drilled holes where I needed them. On the top mounts near the lip of the bumper apron I used butterfly toggle bolts. I also added neoprene washers between the license bracket and the bumper for a little vibration absorbancy and also to seal the holes. On the bottom mounts I used long #10 screws and some nylon spacers, with the screws tightened directly into the plastic of the bumper apron. The top mounting bolts carry all the weight and the bottom screws hold the spacers in place and keep the bottom of the bracket from flapping around.

I don't blame anyone for not wanting to mount their front plates - especially the way the factory does it. I held off for a while. As I said before, I finally wimped out.

pdxjim

356: I took the factory mount and flipped it upside down and used the existing holes and screws (2), BUT bottom is unattached and everything is still on a vertical plane. Would imagine it will come off in a car wash-yes I use a car wash on my truck. So, will look into angling it back like you did. It is nice looking at the gaping grill, unobstructed!

356driver

pdxjim - You might want to experiment with nylon spacers on the top holes to provide the desired angle. The spacers could be cut as wedges to form the desired angle between the bracket and the mounting holes (you might have to get slightly longer screws). You would definitely want to anchor the bottom of the bracket with spacers as I describe above, otherwise you invite damage. I used a Dremel with a cutting disk to cut the nylon spacers, although a hacksaw would also cut them cleanly.

ltc

You could always keep your front license plate, attached to the front mounting brackets, along with 2 broken screws/fasteners, in the car with you, and simply state that the cheap fastener broke and you are awaiting the parts from Germany....in about a month .

I've "heard" this works very well.

356driver

A month? Do you have an inside track?