Haven't been on here in a long time. Thought i'd update since i got a new car about 6 months ago. goodbye Jeep, hello 128i coupe. As she sits currently, the wheel's are plastidipped, not painted. And they're my winter rims.
That is a normal plate, I'm in the USA. I have no desire to drill holes to put a bright orange fugly license plate in the center of it, It looks even worse than it does now. i'd run plateless but i drive too much to risk it. The tow hook mount at least lets me remove it for car meets.
Regardless of the drilling aspect, do you think the plate looks worse centered, or did you just mean the holes in the bumper do when you completely remove the plate? I agree with Bose that if you have to run one, it'd probably look better in the middle/that the cover looks a bit odd & naked as is. Also, while I've always lived in states where front plates were optional, I've seen multiple mounting solutions over the years from others who also didn't want to drill. Surely there're alternatives for BMW's?
Here's a bad pic of the back of my Tamiya rim. I realize it's likely not helpful for modification of yours, but there's a chance Tamiya and/or another manufacturer makes your rim with a similar spoke design..
I used to run the plate centered Since the holes were already drilled for it. I got a new bumper due to unrelated circumstances and didn't want to put a drill to a very expensive front bumper, so i opted for the side mount. I do agree centered would look less awkward, i've just grown fond of the offset look now. Here's a couple pictures with my centered plate+summer wheels
I'm sure i could use something like velcro, i just prefer the simplicity of the tow hook mount. I may look into in the future, eventually when i drive less, i'm just going to run plateless. i drove plateless for a few weeks while i waited for the mount to come and i had no issues.
Then you'd have fugly velcro & a plate that could fall and/or be rather easily knocked off. The first thing that came to mind was make a bracket of sorts that attaches in the opening that the plate overhangs. There're a few different ways one could make that work, have a solid mount & leave no trace or marks on the front of the bumper cover. I think I've seen variations of the idea sold commercially.
Decent double sided tape holds perfectly well, as long as the two surfaces are clean and you use enough of it. I use it all the time at work and I've never had a plate fall off If you do use screws just get some of the coloured caps and hide them well
Then every time you want to go plate-less you've gotta deal with removing the tape/adhesive, make sure you stick it back on straight etc. Not brain surgery, but annoying none the less. For a center mount I'd do something like what I suggested and/or the colored cap idea above. So.. what state has orange plates and is a big enough jerk to actually require both?
Distantly related rant below: (regarding a ticket)
While traveling recently I got stopped for an expired registration. I was pissed to start with because the cop had to tailgate me @ interstate speeds to get my info. (soo wanted to brake-check him!! he didn't have his lights on either, so I wasn't sure what was up for a minute) Anyways, I get home to find he's given me an out of date number. After calling it & getting hung up on for about a week, I Google the right one and speak to a human. Turns out he didn't give me all the paperwork either, like the slip that's actually got the citation number @ the top. (resulting in the clerk getting pissy with me) Fine's $190, same as if I'd been going 16-21mph over the limit & the only way I can get a payment plan is if the magistrate WITNESSES my signature?! (meaning I drive 3h one way) I've been ticketed all over the country and haven't ever ran into that before. (it's not that I don't have the money, but paying it may result in having to postpone my FI plans a tad, heh) If I didn't have a personal plate it'd have been good until the end of March as well. That combined with my having not received renewal papers yet for whatever reason, caused me to completely forget about it. :doh:
I bought a new number plate in ~July 2010 and then fitted it with double sided tape.
In Winter 2012 I had to put a new front bumper on, and remove it... jesus it was stuck! I genuinely thought the plate would break before the glue gave way. Was well impressed!
Running "plate-less" isn't really an option in the UK, so it's never really bothered me.
Not to drag on, but you pointed out how well tape can adhere & the situation was regarding somewhat frequent add/removal of the plate. Goo-Gone type removers help, but from my experience, sometimes it still takes the power of the dark side to completely remove 3M & similar.
New York state, of course. I just have no desire to center the plate and have to do more then loosen a few screws to remove it. The tow hook mount really doesn't bother me, it has a couple other mounting options too, i just chose that one because i thought it was the least ugly.