Hi - I will be picking up a 2010 Prius III in Blizzard Pearl this weekend. I wanted to see if any of you had a photo of the factory front license plate holder, and rear too if you can take a photo of it. I'm basically trying to determine if I should ask them to install it (requires drilling into the bumper right?), or to ask the dealer to hold off on it and buy an aftermarket front holder. Basically I don't want a license plate holder in the front that is bad for the car, i.e. scrapes the point off the bumper, or one that looks cheap, that sort of thing. Just something functional that doesn't look too bad with the car is what I am asking. But open to any suggestions, and photos of course! Thanks all. mike
You probably won't find one that fits better than the OEM. If your state requires a front license plate, definitely have the dealer install it. If you're just planning to add your own plate to the front, wait and install it yourself after your think about it for a while.
* Installation of the factory Holder is VERY simple, NO drilling is required. It comes with two self tapping screws and there are two indentions in the bumper where they go. I'm totally blind, and I installed ours! David (aka Blind guy)
Why would it bad if Toyota designed it?? At least they included one cause I've seen some with the plate drilled directly into the bumper (like the Yaris) and it looks cheap.
Here is a copy of my earlier post. I was concerned about leaving 6 mm holes in the front fascia in case I ever display the car without front liscence plates. I used the factory plastic bracket but did not use the 6 mm screws supplied because they would have made too large of a hole in the primary surface of the fascia. I instead got 2 screws that were about 1.5 mm dia and began threading them into the center of the molded in dimples just getting the holes started without drilling any holes. Upon removing the screws the holes were hardly noticeable since the plastic was still there but just shoved to the side but still contained well within the molded in dimples. I drilled holes for 3 larger screws along the bottom face of the plastic bracket. I then mounted the bracket using the 1.5 mm screws and the 2 small screw holes I created inside the dimples. I then used 3 screws that were about 3 mm dia in the 3 new holes in the bottom of the bracket. I let these 3 screws self tap into the secondary (lower) surface of the fascia near the black plastic grill. The result is a much more stable mounted plastic bracket over the factory design. The fascia will still be decent looking if the plastic bracket is ever removed. The dealers could never take the time to do this. It took me 20 minutes including finding the right screws and my drill. I would think the dealer gets the job done with the two 6 mm screws in about 10 seconds.
Here's another option for the holes left in the bumper if you ever want to remove the front plate holder. BumperPlugs.com
Here's a picture of the front bracket that I am selling on Ebay: 2010 Toyota Prius Front License Plate Bracket frame 10:eBay Motors (item 120506683434 end time Dec-19-09 21:15:04 PST)
Whoever installed my front bracket put it off-center a bit. A pain for me since one probably cannot fix it without making two more holes in the front bumper, and possibly exposing one of the existing holes.
