The new trend in my college town is to steal out-of-state personalized plates.

Does anyone have ideas/suggestions on how to keep the back license plate on?? The bolt only goes through the license and a piece of plastic as thick as the license plate.

Home Depot guy suggested rivets -- but that would mean drilling holes in the bumper -- no way. Also looked at vandal-resistant screws (only can screw clockwise), but they don't come in metric sizes.

 

Maybe you can use hex screws or something else. I used those for my clear corners on my civic.

 

I can relate to that as well from my days at U. of Notre Dame, especially on football weekends. I lost my front plates on my old car while parked.

In my opinion, there really is no prevention to plate theft. I personally would not bolt or specially attach the plates since the last thing I want is the scoundrel to wrestle/twist the plates off...hence damaging the bumpers. I guess it's better to lose the plates than to suffer body damage.....


My 2 cents

 

I got mine stolen in NY when I had WI license plates.
It was very annoying.....the police told us that we would be stopped along the way to MA and back to WI.
We ended up "drawing" our license plates (all our cars had plates stolen) and wrapped them up in clear plastic bags.

 

If I was REAL paranoid I could mount a microwave sensor for the alarm next to the license plate light (and a serious strobe light to blind 'em at night is always cool).

 

If theft is otherwise unavoidable, perhaps you should remove the plate when you park.

 

I've seen cops write up tickets for parked cars at this asian pool hall

 

Only think I can think of is to get bolts with star heads, the ones that look like "*" but not the phillips head ones, they have like a 6 pointed star on them, would atleast make the theives go back for different tools.

 

Funny, you wound up opposite of me. I was born in NJ and grew up in WI. Now I am in WA. A move from WI to NJ had to be a bigger change than WI to WA I bet.

 

I like the idea of a hexnut or allen screw to attach the plates if that is a big concern.

You could also use LocTite, of course you wouldn't be able to take them off either!

I think, though, when perps are unable to remove the plate(s) for whatever reason, wrong tool, etc...then they get mad, when they get mad, they are likely to damage your car just to "show you."

I would rather let the plates go...but that's just me.