While I've been applying to jobs, I've been working at a carwash. A little perk is I get free passes to wash my car every pay period. Before working here I never really washed my car, but now I'm more aware of when it's dirty. Besides, I've always like going through the carwash since I was little. I don't know why, probably nostalgia or something at this point. However, an un-fun part about washing your car frequently is that it can mess with some parts of the car that otherwise would be fine.
So there's a mechanism in the wash used to clean the backend of the car, we call them wraps. On certain cars these wraps can grab loose parts on the back of the car, like a loose windshield wiper or license plate. My license plate was starting to get grabbed by the wraps which will result in the license plate getting bent out and just looking kinda trashy or in an extreme case breaking. You can ask them to turn these wraps off so they don't cause this problem, but then your backend isn't getting a very good wash.
Another simple solution is a license plate frame. That is what I did.
Installing a license plate frame is super easy. Like this post is probably pointless it's so easy, but there are a couple things I thought I'd highlight incase you find yourself doing it.
First of all, pick out your frame. There are frames in every design and style you could possibly imagine. If you can't find what you want, there are shops on Amazon that do custom designs. I would suggest getting a metal one instead of one of the plastic ones. I see plastic ones broken in half sitting in the wash almost everyday. So those don't really protect, they're just decoration. I bought a frame from a shop on Amazon that never arrived (thank goodness for Amazon claims) so the one I'm actually using is from Etsy shop LastOfTheTimeLadies9. I really like how it turned out. Seems strong and it looks good. I was concerned that the painted lettering would get peeled off in the wash. I had some clear spray paint so I sprayed a coat on it to try to add another protective coating to try to make it last longer.
After you get the license plate, you'll need license plate bolts. There are several options that are made of plastic or nylon. DO NOT get these. They'll just strip on you and you'll end up back buying the metal ones anyway. You will want a pack of 4 (you can try skipping the frame and just using 4 bolts on the plate, but that doesn't always work.)
After that installation is pretty easy, but first I had some rust from the old bolts that I wanted to remove. It may seem silly to you, but I have a vanity plate from my university and if I'm going to do all this work to keep it from bending, I might as well not have rust either. I used Bar Keepers friend to remove the rust.
It comes as a powder so you're going to want a wet rag to use to scrub it in, and another wet rag to wipe off the residue.
As you can see, this worked pretty well so that's just great to know for any rust problems you might encounter.
After that it's just a matter of screwing it all in. Mine had little hooks that grabbed onto the lower bolts and holes for the top bolts to got through. So you have to put the lower bolts on first and then align the plate and screw in. I put some clear nailpolish over the bolts to try to avoid them rusting like the old one.
But hey these are more like guidelines anyway.