How many of you have a license plate frame with the name of the dealer on it, put there by the dealer when you bought your car?
I was just noticing how ugly many of them are, and in my state, most of them are illegal because they are obscuring part of the plate.
When I purchase a car, one of the stipulations is, “No dealer sticker or dealer emblem can be placed on this car”.
I will permit a dealer license plate frame if it is not gaudy and if it does not obscure part of my license plate. Luckily, the dealership from which I bought my last two cars uses fairly tasteful license plate frames and does not use dealer stickers or emblems.
I made my dealer leave OFF the license frame, the front license plate replacement ( dealer logo on heavy plastic the size of the front plate), and the dealer decal on rear gate.
…Oh yeah, I work for them !
I think they should pay ME to carry their logos. Sports apparel, company names emblazoned on products etc. example Why does a $50 dollar jacket cost $100 covered in Nascar logos ? It should be the other way around. Plain product X dollars. If you agree to show our logos and names, DISCOUNT cha-ching !
It is just easier remove them after I purchased a vehicle.
No license plate brackets with the dealer names, actually no brackets with any free ad space at all.
I do leave the dealer sticker on the back of the car unless it is really big and gross.
I have never allowed any dealer that I have bought a car from to advertise on them.
Advertising is an expensive business and if is going to be done on my vehicle, then I would like a very substantial discount.
I work with the public for a living and it just amazes me the amount of dealer plate or sticker on their cars. I personally just got a new camry at the end of 2008 and i just replaced mine with some plane janes from advance. I’m not the one to complain about license plate covers.
We took it off for one of our cars, but not for the other.
I kept my license plate frame as long as it got me a discount on oil changes and other maintenance, which I had done at the dealership while the car was under warranty. As soon as they dropped the discount, I removed the license plate frame.
I have discovered the dealership stickers come off pretty easily if you remove them right after you buy the car. If you wait, they don’t come off as easily.
I won’t buy a car that had stickers or logos on it, unless it was a real good deal. Both my current cars have the LP frames. One is Chrome and actually the dealer is out of business. And the other actually only says Toyota and the name of the city we used to live in. So the kids want it there. I would never pay to buy a frame that has the name of a store on it though. Around here everybody has a Sport Chalet Frame which I don’t get.
Some of my vehicles over the years had the dealers name written on the back. Little more work to remove but doable.
My present vehicle and maybe my last one, a 2004 Toyota Matrix just had plate brackets so no problem removing those.
No, I don’t much care to advertise for free either.
Normally I tell them no decals or stickers but the last one has a license plate bracket. It looks better with the frame and is legal with the whole plate visible, so no big deal. I could take it off anytime but we prefer to have the frame.
Somewhat of topic,has anyone really got to know your Dealers owner? I have with several,in my opinion they display what is great about capitalism,they take big risks but often become very wealthy. Another thing I notice is how many owners bring their sons into the business,almost a given son will work at Dealership.
How this relates to Joseph’s post is I have worked for Dealers that I would proudly display the frame for.
I don’t mind them if they’re just a tasteful little badge or sticker with the dealer name and city. I have a big metal badge from a dealership in Minneapolis on my '76 Chevy truck that I think is pretty neat looking. I also think it’s kind of interesting to see where the cars that are driving around my area were sold originally.
I don’t mind them…it’s not big deal if they are on there or not…unless they look ugly…then I’ll remove or replace them.
I don’t know any dealership owners personally, but what I do know of them isn’t all flattering.
I live in Jacksonville, FL, where we have one dealership owner who puts his twin daughters in every commercial, whether on TV or in print. The sad thing is that they can’t act. They can’t even pronounce “Toyota.”
One motorcycle dealership I used to frequent was owned by a single proprietor. His son worked at the dealership, but he treated the customers and employees like crap. It is lucky for the employees he sold the business instead of giving it to his son.
My experience with family owned businesses is that, yes, the original owner is quite admirable for his ambition and drive. His sons, however, inherit the business without having to lift a finger, and are likely to run it into the ground. This usually happens within two generations, but sometimes it takes three generations. It isn’t the same when a daughter inherits the business though. When a daughter inherits a business, she often has something to prove to her employees because of sexist attitudes from both men and women. Consequently, she usually does a better job of making the business thrive under her care.
I put my own plain chrome trim frames on anyway, so I just remove them when I do that.
I just leave the dealer name on the back. It just isn;t important enough to worry about. These are so ubiquitous that I seriously doubt if anybody notices them anyway.
Yes, a lot of themm are illegal in NH also, as they cover the state from which the plate was issued. I also regularly see trailer hitch balls on pickups that block most of the center of the plate, making it completely unreadable, which is technically illegal. And my pet peeve, those tinted plate covers that make the plate impossible to read from more than a few feet away.
This is a good opportunity to advance my post count by one.
Remove the frame!
I have no problems with the plate frames, it’s the stickers/decals that annoy me.
I believe that if I got good service from a dealership, I’ll send some of my friends/coworkers to them. If they want to advertise on my vehicle by putting those badges that make it look like it came that way from the factory(Nelson and Ricart are 2 big offenders around my area), or even stickers, I’ll tell them we can either arrange for them to pay me an advertising fee every month, or they can leave it off.
Okay, now if one does not want to advertise, then what do you do with the car’s brand and logo on the car itself. Lets say I drive a Toyota, do I really want to advertise for the company? I guess now I can see why some kids “shave” their cars!