Rear License

[Westfield 11]

Originally Posted by Karl Roth

unneeded weight and complexity
karl

An entire 2 grams! Come on, "unneeded weight"? And just how complex is it to put in an insert when the part is molded? smart just cheaped out on this one.

On second thought, you were being sarcastic weren't you?

[jwight]

As for the dealers pre-installing plates, etc. - just say no. Let 'em know well in advance of the car's arrival what you want or don't want done to the car. As they say, failure to respond will be considered as agreement.

[shack01]

Bought some hardware and bracket today at Pep Boys and may find some time tomorrow to get it together. I did notice when I got home that the two dimples are not even close to the correct positioning for a US plate. Just hoping I don't drill into any surprises! Like the time a house or two ago when I tried to install a bike hanger in the garage. Who knew they ran a copper water line right next to the joist where I was drilling?

tm

[spdickey]

That's why I'm glad I let the dealer install the plate frames. If they messed it up, they pay to fix it. If you mess up, its your problem. Pilot holes and self tapping screws worked just fine on my smartie.

[shack01]

Just a cursory look into the rear lift-gate revealed that blindly drilling would not have been a good idea. Where the screws would have come thru is right where one of the side rails lives when motoring in true convertible mode. Now I'll need to figure the length of screws that will both secure the license and not protrude into the rail storage area. (There's a size matters comment there somewhere, I'm sure ) So now my thinking is to epoxy a nut plate to the back side of the body panel if I can remove it easily. Anyone done this yet on the Cabrio? Alternatively, I could just drill away and then cut off the protruding part of the screw. Decisions, decisions.

tm

[smarterer]

My car came with a frame that had four wood screws holding in on. What I did to my car to make it more “civilized” was install threaded insert rivet nuts. It’s much easier and cleaner then trying to get nuts behind the plastic. The only trick was to place some washers between the rivet gun and the nuts to reduce the length the stud protruded out of the nuts. I then purchased four ¼” stainless steel button head cap screws to make sure they don’t rust and make it just a little more difficult to remove the plate. If you with to purchase a threaded insert rivet kit this is where I purchased my kit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=1210

[FWOIII]

The dimples in the rear are for euro plates. smart has a specific way they want rear plates to be mounted. 3/4 inch self tapping screws into the pannel.

[SiestaSmart]

I am trying to understand why my Smart is different. My dealer installed the temp tags and so when my tags arrives I undid his machine bolts. One wouldn't work so I took apart the tailgate (just a few screws on the cabriolets "tailgate"). Be careful, the plastic skin just drops away from the tailgate held up by the cables. Anyway, 2 nuts glued to the inside of the tailgate receive the machine bolts. One had been broken off by the dealer, but a bit of glue and careful replacement took care of that. No self tapping screws, no drilling, just screws going into nuts!

[SeaDoc]

Just picked up mine today - so, final analysis after browsing the previous discussions on this topic, what is the dealer preferred screws used on a coupe for the rear plate? 4 screws/2 screws, 3/4 inch?, nuts/bolts/ or self-tapping, etc... a non-sarcastic response would be appreciated.

[spdickey]

Originally Posted by SeaDoc

Just picked up mine today - so, there is NO bracket for the rear license plate, you just 'screw it in', and the dimples seem to be spaced for european plates - is that correct?

Apparently written by someone who did not read the posts above that would have completely answered his questions.