Euro front plate is on wrong?

[Auf los!]

OK, without getting into the legalities of this, or even the aesthetics of ruining the looks of the front of my car, I have a good reason for temporarily mounting a Euro-style front plate.

The plate and the plate frame came from Griot's. The hardware that mounts it to the front bumper is OEM.

The hardware consists of two big blocks, shaped somewhat to the curve of the nose, and a curved backing plate that is smaller than the Euro plate.

See the pics, I got it all on the car, but I am really unhappy about how the backing plate is so stood off from the nose, and the angle of the plate, which is leaned back and not perpendicular to the nose.

Anyone fooled with these things, and can tell me where I've gone wrong??

Thanks!

[tonycarreon]

before i removed my front plate and got the "bumper plugs" i had the mounting hardware. i don't remember it being so angled, i seem to remember it was flat on when looked at from the side. (though i should note i did not use a euro plate, just standard us plates so i don't have the extra part. just the main bracket attached to the first set of "blocks")

i just grabbed my plate and looked. i think you might need to rotate the the plastic that's closest to the bumper 90º, so that it is angled from the outer sides to the middle of the bumper instead of top to bottom.

blurry pictures attached:

from the side:


from the bottom:

[tonycarreon]

looking at a few other threads on other sites, it doesn't look like you need the first part of the mounting hardware (the black "squares"). it looks like the plate hardware attaches directly to the bumper, and the plate to the hardware.

i guess that makes sense since we have to use the "squares" to attach our US plate to our euro bumpers...

[img]http://www.****************************************************.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/986europlateframe.jpg[/img]

[Auf los!]

Thanks, yeah, I looked at that pic, too, and decided to eliminate the square blocks and try to get the backing plate to mount flush to the bumper.

I used some leftover plastic Mazda expanding plugs to mount the backing plate. Had to enlarge the holes a little for the big plastic screws to go through.

The assembly is now much more flush, and I gently bent the metal license plate to follow the curve of the nose.

I dunno if I have the nerve to drive around with this thing on all the time, it looks enormous, and attention-attracting to me. But interestingly, I interviewed a guy recently who drives around all the time with a Euro front plate, and has never been stopped by a cop because of it.

[evan9eleven]

Not sure why you'd want to do this if your state doesn't require a front plate (or if they do) but I'll try to help since I recently registered the car and got new plates. I also needed a new stock bracket as my original one was cracked.

The stock curved bracket mounts directly to the bumper as you see in the pic Tony posted below. Then the actual plate frame/holder with plate mounts to that. I also had to bend my front plate slightly to match this curve.

Good luck with the cops

[Auf los!]

Like I stated, this is only temporary. My state DOES require a front plate, and I'm sure they mean the officially issued plate! I reworked the setup without using the big blocks, and mounted the backing plate flush to the nose. It actually fits better than it looks in the photo.

[evan9eleven]

There you go! Thats exactly the fit I have on my car.