Hello everybody. I recently purchased a German license plate off eBay. I want to mount it on the front on my 300D, as I think the Euro plates look pretty cool.

My bumper has the proper size mounting area for the European plate. The problem is that I do not have the proper hardware. Today I removed the U. S. plate insert hoping to find mounting holes or something that I could attach the Euro plate to, but I found nothing.

It seems unlikely that I could get the proper hardware from a dealership, as I doubt there is a large demand for it in this country. Any ideas on where I can get the hardware? Or should I just drill some holes?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Cheers,

__________________
Ben

The MBs:
1976 300D (W115) - 330K and still going (sort of)
1991 300D 2.5 Turbo - Sold at 221K
1983 280SEL - Sold at 206K
1981 300SD - Sold at 232K

Ben,
Your best bet is going to be for you to buy some metal strapping that has holes in it and make your own european bracket. There is a special bracket that goes there, the same way that there is a special bracket for the US plates. Maybe one of our fellow members that lives overseas couls send you one.

Ben,

If you want me to, I can send you a digital picture of the mounting hardware and pre-drilled holes in my 300CE.
It will provide some insight in how Germans thought their plates should be mounted.

I wish we were allowed to drive without the front license plate as well (and even better: without the rear license plate). It would save me a lot of money!

greetingz,

__________________
1990 300SL-24
1993 C250D with a minor 600+k kilometer
www.MBenzNL.com(the Netherlands)

MBenz, that would be great if you could send me a picture. Thanks for your help.

Cheers,

__________________
Ben

The MBs:
1976 300D (W115) - 330K and still going (sort of)
1991 300D 2.5 Turbo - Sold at 221K
1983 280SEL - Sold at 206K
1981 300SD - Sold at 232K

I also got a German plate on Ebay (for $10.50). It already had 2 holes in it so I held it up to the bumper and drilled about a half inch into the bumper with a 3/16" bit. I then attached it with 2 long 3/16" aluminum pop-rivets. A cleaner job you couldn't ask for.

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=839899&a=10650673&p=47049392

P.S. The car is a '86 230E Euro model that is FOR SALE, check the classified section.

Whenever you drill into painted or chrome plated sheetmetal to attach something, you should put silicone RTV sealant into the holes before attaching bolts or rivets to prevent the formation of rust. Also make sure you have used a backing washer behind the rivet. I think that it may not be the best way to go anyway, depending upon the weight of the plate, as it could in time create stress fractures in the body or the bumper. Just a thought for anyone going to do a custom mod...

But it sure looks "Euro". Maybe Steve can tell us Amerikanishers if there is any significance to the plate numbers and letters. I know when I lived in Colorado, you could tell what county the car was registered in by the letter prefixes. Perhaps the same is true in Deutschland?

Also, if you place the HTML image code in front of your photopoint URL, and after it, we will see your car photo instead of just the link to it....



[Edited by longston on 04-22-2001 at 08:51 PM]

__________________

Scott Longston
Northern California Wine Country...
"Turbos whistle, grapes wine..."

The bumper cover is non-metallic and the license plate weighs only a few ounces. Anyway, the last time I was in Europe if I remember correctly, many front license plates were secured by rivets directly into the bumper.

Now just what is an HTML image code?

I just wanted to post that advice for future reference...

After all, I don't know your particular car or how you mounted it, so if anyone else wants to do the same thing that pointer is there to help them.

To post a photo on these forums, you need to place [ no space img no space ] in front, and [ no space /img no space ] after it's URL. If you do, it posts as a picture like the one in my signature...

BTW, Just put the "img" and "/img" in between the [ ]'s. I have to spell it out like that, or the server reads it as a pic, and it will end up looking like this: [img][/img]

instead of like this:



See, I just copied your URL for the photo, and placed the "codes" in front & back of it....

Versthense?

__________________

Scott Longston
Northern California Wine Country...
"Turbos whistle, grapes wine..."

atikovi is right. On my euro the mountings for the euro plates are imbedded directly in the bumper. Funny thing though the car came with the mounting holes for the US mounting plastic plate already there so its kind of suprising that you don't have the euro holes there already. Has the bumper ever been replaced?

The bumper has never been replaced, and I am pretty sure the car is a U. S. model (it has DOT headlights). I think that all W124 bumpers have the Euro cutout.

__________________
Ben

The MBs:
1976 300D (W115) - 330K and still going (sort of)
1991 300D 2.5 Turbo - Sold at 221K
1983 280SEL - Sold at 206K
1981 300SD - Sold at 232K

I was looking into getting a German plate for my car as well. I JUST ran into this:

http://www.euro-sign.com/euro_step.htm

Looks like a universal frame that should work.

If not, check this out:
http://www.autoplates.com/ki14000.htm

near the bottom of the page, you'll see that they have a "German Bolt Kit (BOLT-GERM) $5.00 - German fastener kit. Made especially for our authentic Euro-Plates".

Willy

[Edited by wjm on 04-23-2001 at 01:05 PM]

__________________
Willy

'94 E420 White

Mods
-------
Berg Werks Keyless Entry
Buzzer replaced with Chime
Dash Light Upgrade
Burlwood/Leather shift knob
Alpine CDA-9815 Head Unit
2002/2003 16" C Class 7-Spoke Wheels
Updated "Chip" to fix Code 19 problem

OK,

I just called these folks, they can custom print anything on the plate for $39.95. The frame I mentioned earlier is $10

Willy

__________________
Willy

'94 E420 White

Mods
-------
Berg Werks Keyless Entry
Buzzer replaced with Chime
Dash Light Upgrade
Burlwood/Leather shift knob
Alpine CDA-9815 Head Unit
2002/2003 16" C Class 7-Spoke Wheels
Updated "Chip" to fix Code 19 problem

Thanks for the link. They both look quite helpful.

__________________
Ben

The MBs:
1976 300D (W115) - 330K and still going (sort of)
1991 300D 2.5 Turbo - Sold at 221K
1983 280SEL - Sold at 206K
1981 300SD - Sold at 232K

The european way to mount european license plates to the front bumper on a W124 is shown below:




The license plate is screwed to the bumper with 4 screws, 1 in each corner. Behind the license plate is a plastic panel that covers all other screw positions and that houses the temperature sensor. The part# of this panel is 124 885 10 23.
As you can see there are a lot of different sized euro plates that can be mounted to the black MB bumper trim.


The license plate holders that are linked above, are normal license plate holders and are normally used for the rear license plates; like this:



The license plate holder has a couple of (slotted) holes to fit any possible car, but I only use this license plate holder on the rear of mercedes vehicles.


European license plates normally tell something about the region where it is registrated.
The german plate that is posted above starts with a D. The first letter or set of letters is an abbreviation of the city/region the owner lives. If I remember correctly D stands for Düsseldorf, but I am not sure (K for Köln, HH for Hamburg, B for Bonn and so on).
French license plates end with a 2-digit number that is related to the region in which the car is registrated as well (89 for the St Tropez region).
In contraire of the French and German license plates (which are owner related), the dutch license plates are car related and the combination of letters/digits are related to the timeframe in which the car is first registrated.

Ben, if you want some additional pictures just send me a mail message and I will attach some other pictures.

...just some info...greetingz,

__________________
1990 300SL-24
1993 C250D with a minor 600+k kilometer
www.MBenzNL.com(the Netherlands)

Great pictures Mbenz, that's exactly what I was trying to explain...