Is this advisable? The law seems to suggest that drivers are required to keep their plates legible. But if a repainting of faded letters and numbers–usually, in CA, it’s yellow letters/numbers on a light blue plate, or dark blue on cream–might catch a policeman’s attention, it might not be so wise. Should I or shouldn’t I?
Goodness! Are there still cars old enough to have the blue background, yellow letter combination? (I guess so!)
I am sorry, I can’t with any authority advise you, but my hunch is that it would be OK to carefully fill in any faded spots. After all, a close scrutiny by anyone would show that no attempt to alter the identity of the letters/numbers was involved.
Here’s the relevent phrase
Which is found in the law at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=45898622985+5+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve
The answer is, they have a law that would allow them to arrest/fine you. Whether they do or not depends on how pissy they might be.
I did it once, nothing happened to me.
“No person shall display upon a vehicle a license plate altered from its original markings.”
That seems to imply you are alterning something, like changing numbers or letters, not just redoing them as they are, doesn’t it?
California doesn’t have a law requiring new plates every 5 years or so? I know Florida does, since the 3M reflective coating degrades over time. But I guess you don’t have the coating.
No, California lets you keep the plates that came with your car. When the car is sold, the plates go to the new owner. One way to get new plates is to order the personalized plates. Or if you move from another state, your old car will get the latest CA plates (obviously).
I like this system; it makes it easy to tell how “old” a car is by looking at its plates. (I can’t automatically always tell by looking at the model/make of a car.)
I remember I caught a TV movie in a “blooper” once because of this. The main character had recently moved to California, and brought his vintage car with him (from Maine, or wherever he was before). Therefore, the car was supposedly bought in Maine, and on the move to Calif., had new CA plates put on. But it had ancient (the blue/gold combo) California plates! They stopped making those in the early '80s, I think! If he had new CA plates put on, they should have been the dark blue on cream background plates. But he had 20 year old plates. No way.
The blue/gold combo are rare enough, but even more rare are the black/gold combo, which came before that. Then before that (way back in the dark ages) they made the gold/black (gold background, black lettering) combo. It’s a rare thing indeed to see a car driving around with those plates—usually it’s only the “restored” oldies. And you’ll see them in old movies.
Yes, I always notice this. I was surprised when I discovered that other states don’t have this system. I like it.
I’ve noticed that the red numbers on quite a few Wisconsin license plates have faded quite significantly. These are being replaced by plates with black numbers. Are there other states with defective license plates, or are these plates just that old?
In Minnesota, the plates stay with the car, too. However, they switch the plates every few years (no significant change in design, but, last time, they switched from 999-AAA numbers to AAA-999 numbers) so an old car doesn’t have plates that are that old. We bought our car just after the last switch (five years ago) and I’ve noticed that the renewal sticker stack is already getting pretty thick. Do they just keep piling up in CA?
I wouldn’t advise painting the numbers because they might interfere with the reflective coating. A cop might not be able to tell during the day, but at night it would be obvious (and possibly more difficult to read.) Can you get new plates? I know you’d hate to give up your “vintage” plates, but I interpret your law as stated in the OP above as saying “get new license plates if the old ones are so worn as to be illegible”.
Don’t be surprised if you notice missing paint on the new black on white plates. I got my new ones a while back and the first time I washed the car half of the lettering on the front plate peeled off.
I think the police frown on it, and may write you a fix-it ticket to get new plates.
I had the old black & gold plates on my first car, a 1957 Nash Metropolitan! Woo hoo!
And out here, a lot of people peel off their old registration stickers and replace them with the new ones, rather than letting them “pile up” in a thick pad. This is because stealing reg stickers used to be a problem, and they are really easy to get off if you have a big stack of them. Nowadays, I just score them twice diagonally once they’re on the plate, in an “X”, and you can’t get them off without tearing them into four pieces.
You guys must have a lot of slackers in your prisons!
I say, withhold special priviledges like T.V. time until they straighten up and stop churning out defective plates.
Or is it the defective 3M reflective paint that your neighbours to the west sold you?
I don’t know what it is with the new Texas plates - a lot of them appear to be screened on instead of paint over an indented area.
They are completely flat.
It would be so easy for someone to modify one, not to mention that they look horribly cheap. I can see how the letters would ‘fall’ off.
-Babs, who is praying her new plates aren’t the cheap-o ones.
I think that I can now see how Wisconsin is able to have much cheaper license plate fees than we do! 
[quote]
California Vehicle Cose section 5201
License plates shall at all times be … maintained in a condition so as to be clearly legible.
You can’t just let the letters fade, and you can’t alter the plate’s original markings, so it appears the only solution is to order new plates as needed.
DAMMIT! Wrong button.
You can’t just let the letters fade, and you can’t alter the plate’s original markings, so it appears the only solution is to order new plates as needed.
Last Wednesday I spoke to an attorny doing pro bono counseling at the local courthouse, in Torrance. I asked him the question, and he said it is OK to paint the figures back. I will use masking tape and newspaper, of course, to keep it neat… 
Dude, do not take an attorney’s word for it!
Call the freaking DMV and ask them! Trust me- the courts have no jurisdiction over the DMV in many things, and the DMV delights in screwing around with lawyers.
Just ask them.
Altering your license plate is quite ill advised. Even the addition of correctly applied foreign paint is sufficient grounds for a “clean-your-clock” traffic stop.
Here in New Jersey anyway, the lettering itself is not reflective, it’s just plain black paint. Only the background of the plate is reflective. I would think, if you did a good job of repainting the letters, a cop would need a magnifying glass to notice the difference. But it still couldn’t hurt to call the DMV and ask them what the official ruling is.
-Andrew L
Here is a very geeky (in a delightful way ) web site dedicated to all things California License Plate. May you find all you ever wanted to know about CA plates here! (Be sure to check out the License Plate Gallery, linked at the top of the page.)
BUMP! (Bounce, rattle, gasp, wheeze, cough . . . )
This seems to be in the news again.
New (apparently) CA law: $1000 fine for tampering with your plate, in such a way as to make your plate un-readable to police license plate scanners or other similar electronic surveillance. (I suppose that would include scanners at toll bridges, etc.)
But guess what! There’s also an epidemic of plates with the paint peeling off, due apparently to defective manufacture, and some cops are giving out tickets for those too. (One article cites a guy who got a $1000 ticket for this, which the judge totally tossed out.)
The question seems to be current again: Can you touch up your own plates? Part of the question seems to be a problem getting defective plates replaced by DMV for free. They want to charge a fee for damages place replacements, and don’t seem to have recognized that plates may be defective to begin with. There was also some mention (in a different article I saw) that the replacement may be free or not, depending on how old the plate is.
Another part of the question seems to be the specific paint or coating on the plates. It is some kind of reflective paint, and there is some question whether a DIY repainted plate would be readable by police plate scanners.
Googling for more information, I am seeing articles about this from various states all over the country, and places in Canada too. Those defective plates are contagious!
ETA:
Dude! Don’t trust the DMV either! They enjoy screwing around with the public just as much as they delight in screwing around with lawyers, and besides, no two employees will give you the same answer. (Not to mention, the cops who also delight in screwing around with the public by giving tickets like this aren’t working for the DMV either.)