PNW Chit Chat thread

[Killacortes]

Well its for a friend who is looking to buy a car for a daily...

his budget is like $1200 so we can 5 speed swap e36 easy for that money

i might be down to sell my winter beater for that much pm me if you want some info on it yo!

[AustinK425]

thought etas were supposed to sound like sewing machines? like a tick sorta.

[skuurt skuurt]

mold sucks

[BraveUlysses]

In Washington as long as you can read it from the car in front of you you're cool, so tucked into the windshield comes down to the officer basically.

Wrong.

http://www.wsp.wa.gov/traveler/pasfaqs.htm

Is a front license plate required?

Yes, for those vehicles issued a front plate. The license plate must be affixed to the front of the vehicle and kept clean so as to be plainly seen and read at all times. (RCW 46.16.240)

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.16A.200

(5)(a) Display. License plates must be:

(i) Attached conspicuously at the front and rear of each vehicle if two license plates have been issued;

(ii) Attached to the rear of the vehicle if one license plate has been issued;

(iii) Kept clean and be able to be plainly seen and read at all times; and

(iv) Attached in a horizontal position at a distance of not more than four feet from the ground.

(b) The Washington state patrol may grant exceptions to this subsection if the body construction of the vehicle makes compliance with this section impossible.

[IronJoe]

(b) The Washington state patrol may grant exceptions to this subsection if the body construction of the vehicle makes compliance with this section impossible.

This has been used as a successful defense in the past by a VW friend of mine. The OEM license plate bracket for his GTI was no longer available which made it impossible to properly attach the front plate via the method intended from the factory.

He used to carry a printout of this section of the RCW in his car just in case.


For me, the benefit of not having a front plate is two-fold. First, it looks terrible and ruins the lines of the front of the car. Second, when using Laser to detect speed (LIDAR guns), officers use the front plate as an "aiming" target - apparently the plate reflects better than any other surface on the vehicle and it makes it more difficult for them to get a reading otherwise. This is a little-known fact about the true reason for front plates, and the reason why some states that used to only require the rear are changing their policies. I'll take the $100 non-moving-violation ticket instead of however many potential speeding tickets I'm avoiding, any day!


Oh, and depending on what area you are in, the "It was like that when I bought it" defense is actually usable - in Tacoma for example, they can write you a "Fix It Ticket" instead of an actual ticket. This happened to me and it was the only time I ever got pulled over for it (I was running a "Saab Turbo" vanity plate at the time. Since then I just run no plate of any kind and have logged thousands of miles in all my cars, no problem).

[e34croak]

Knock on wood. Years of not driving like an assbag and no front plates has been good to me.

[EN318isPDX]

You guys are a bad influence, making me want to rip my front plate off

[e34croak]

Take it off! Do it slowwwly..

[Mlarsen]

I'd rather not deal with being hassled. I don't want to give a cop another reason to pull me over. I already drive a red BMW.

[e34croak]

I'd rather not deal with being hassled. I don't want to give a cop another reason to pull me over.

Buy Toyota truck, daily.


Drive BMW e___ on nice days.


Have dark tint, loud stereo, no front plate, not give a single fuck.


Profit?

[EN318isPDX]

I'd rather not deal with being hassled. I don't want to give a cop another reason to pull me over. I already drive a red BMW.

This is my reason for keeping it on, also I check my lights religiously to avoid being hassled by a cop who is having a bad day

Buy Toyota truck, daily.


Drive BMW e___ on nice days.


Have dark tint, loud stereo, no front plate, not give a single fuck.


Profit?

I'd rather DD with ^ instead of suffer 364 days a year driving a 4x4

but I have never cared running a front plate until IronJoe mentioned them pinging it with radar gun

[camren123]

so update on my eta if people care ha
-car is totaled and buying it back
-found a e34 i liked haven't found any local e30s that have caught my eye

[OldDrunkenSailor]

id let them go for 30 bucks? That sound fair?

Sounds like a deal. I'll PM you to meet up.

[OldDrunkenSailor]

This has been used as a successful defense in the past by a VW friend of mine. The OEM license plate bracket for his GTI was no longer available which made it impossible to properly attach the front plate via the method intended from the factory.

I actually tried this with my CTS Coupe to no avail. There were no mounting points but GM includes a plastic molded holder-thing that the service dept. drills into your front end to attach, so there are no brackets or anything visible without it. I found the highway patrol and got the right person on the line and she basically laid it out as "So if we talked to a dealer they wouldn't say that there's a way to put it on? No one is able to put front plates on their Cadillac?"

She knew that unless it was an old Ferrari or something similar to it, that it was designed to have a plate. When I sold the car a week later I still had the plastic thing in the trunk for the next guy.

[Mlarsen]

Buy Toyota truck, daily.


Drive BMW e___ on nice days.


Have dark tint, loud stereo, no front plate, not give a single fuck.


Profit?

I drive a CR-V for a daily.