The folks who design Volkswagon vehicles do not know nor would they care that we here in California have a law that states all motor vehicles, in order to be road ready, must be affixed with both front and back licence plates. The front of my VW has a decorative grill with no area set for an easy installation of a No. American licence plate. What this means for consumers is that we are left to purchase after market do-dads--usually online--to use in putting a front plate on a car that doesn't really have place for said front plate. (I could drill holes in the front of my car for a plate holder, but I don't want to resort to that, to be honest.) There is a wee tow hitch found just at the right of the grill that one can rig in order to use as a plate holder. I only know this trick because I called the local VW dealership and asked if their maintenance dept would install a plate on my car. The plate I had affixed to the car's grill with zip-ties, industrial strength glue and a plastic plate frame inevitably failed me and the plate went missing recently, I think. I hadn't cottoned on to the fact that the front plate was gone until a meter maid pulled up in front of my house last Saturday afternoon in a very residential area of town (read: one never sees meter maids out here) to issue me a 'fix it' ticket to the tune of $121.00. Thanks?
I was able to secure an appointment at the local Department of Motor Vehicles in fairly short order--there had been a cancellation yesterday--and purchased a new set of plates. One is surrender the remaining back plate and start anew. -kind of a bummer as I'd easily memorized the last plate no. and the new one doesn't quite roll off the tongue, if you will. Although I've not yet put the new front plate on the car--it's resting comfortably on my dashboard--a friendly cop signed off on my ticket and the fee went from over a hundred bucks to ten, so there's that.
 |
| Tow hook aka No. American plate holder |
A definite whoopsie. I am glad that it has been resolved - and astonished that the ticket diminished. It wouldn't here.
ReplyDeleteOuch, your ticket-giving system sounds rough!
DeleteThat's a flaw. If a car company makes a car that they're selling someplace, they should equip it with all the required doodads. I know the pain of having to replace licence plates. (Didn't happen to me. License plate was sheared off in freeway incident, so front plate was never seen again.)
ReplyDeleteI think so, too.
DeleteWell, that's an annoyance!
ReplyDeleteIndeed!
DeleteI don't understand. We have a Golf. In the UK the front plate goes where shown in your image. The VW dealer almost always registers the fixes the plate on to a new car.
ReplyDeleteOur plates are much smaller just like the plates up in CA. We don't have that service at VW here in my area, at least, I guess? Weird stuff.
DeleteThat is not cool, VW. I haven't had one in a long time so I had no idea but the company should do something about this I would think. Good luck, Bea.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it seems lazy/cheap of the dealership not to provide the service. My bro just bought a Subaru and he told me that they kitted out the front with a front plate frame.
DeleteA side question: does your VW run on gasoline or diesel? Harkening back to those scandal ridden days, you'd think VW would have more sense.
ReplyDeleteYikes. I remember the scandal well. It's gas-powered.
DeleteYou cannot sell an un-plated car here. It must be terrible for all those Ferrari drivers to have the ugly things bolted onto the tiny bit of bodywork at the front.
ReplyDeleteOh, no. The folks with the uber fancy cars usually do not have front plates. I assume that if they were to be ticketed, then they just blithely pay the fine.
Delete