Carbon Number Plates Installed

Installing my carbon number plates which actually should have just taken a couple minutes ended up being a few days affair. The drama started with me specifiying the front number plate with less width compared to the stock chrome number plate carrier. I didn't want too wide a number plate as a narrower version looks better and doesn't cost as much in carbon materials. This means that I can save some money!! Haha.. I also decided to ditch the crappy looking chrome framed front and rear number plate carriers. Now this is where the problem starts. Upon removing the stock front number plate carrier I discovered that the stupid chrome framed metal plate had grown to like the front bumper so much that it left an indellible scar on the front bumper. The sharp edge of the number plate carrier had come into contact with the number plate and removed some paint from the bumper in the process. Love bite pix below. Damn!

The carbon number plate proved to be too narrow to cover up the scar. This now meant that I had 2 options. Option 1 was to make a larger front number plate. Option 2 was to send the said car and front bumper for painting to remove the love bite. Of course one could argue that there's a third option which is to do nothing and just install the carbon number plate and pretend the scar's not visible. But you know me..

Anyway I decided to go for Option 2 as that's cheaper and arguably faster. This means that I had to leave the Slowtra with my mech (again). In the meantime here's the crappy stock chromed framed front number plate carrier. The bolts that hold the number plate carrier to bumper had rusted to kingdom come and stained the numper plate carrier. How cheap can TCM get? Looks like the metal used to fashion the number plate carrier is so thin that double sided tape is used on both sides to secure the carrier to the bumper and prevent it from flapping around when subjected to air/wind pressure thus causing even more love bites.

Luckily I had no issues with the rear number plate so I installed that first. Pix below. IMHO carbon looks damn fab against a silver background!

The Slowtra came back 2 days later from painting and I installed the numper plate the next day. Pix below.

Both front and rear number plates are attached to the bumpers via 3M double sided tape only. Unless you stand less than 3 feet away the carbon number plate looks stock. What do you think of the end result? Worth all the hassle?