Too late to edit, but this needs fixin:
That was supposed to be damaged [del]brain[/del] plate replacement, of course.
Ha! It will hurt you to the extent of taking an hour or two of your life!
If you’ve ever actually tried calling the DMV for anything, you would realize that. Heck, it’d be about 20 minutes before you even get through the phone tree (“Press 1 for…”) to the point where you are put on hold for a human.
Here is one true story, although it was in NY state over 45 years ago. A friend spent a year in France with his American car with NY plates. Someone stole his front license plate. In France, license plates are not made by former governors (as in IL) but by commercial license plate makers. The government supplies the numbers and the artisan makes the plates. So he went to one of them asked if he could duplicate a NY plate. “Sure,” he said, and did, more or less. When my friend came back, he was driving somewhere in NY and a cop noticed something off about the plate. But it had the same number as the rear plate and was clearly not deceptive. My friend told the cop the story and the cop shrugged and said that, as far as he knew, there was no law against it. He did get new plates eventually, though.
I stopped at a car show while in California a few years ago. There was a vendor there that restored old California plates. Drop off your old plates, about an hour later you had freshly repainted plates. He also had a nice selection of restored plates for sale at $200 a pair. It appeared business was brisk for this guy.
[QUOTE=racer72]
I stopped at a car show while in California a few years ago. There was a vendor there that restored old California plates. Drop off your old plates, about an hour later you had freshly repainted plates. He also had a nice selection of restored plates for sale at $200 a pair. It appeared business was brisk for this guy.
[/QUOTE]
The plates he repaints didn’t have Scotchcal or whatever retroreflective material on them. The black on gold and gold on black, and I think also the gold on blue plates were paint or enamel. The light gray background in use now is reflective, so it would be pretty much impossible to replicate in one hour. There is also a specific allowancefor “Year of Manufacture” plates to be restored or painted.
The official word from the DMV:
When to Replace Your License Plates or Stickers
License plates and stickers must be replaced immediately when they are lost, stolen, mutilated, or have become illegible.
Duplicate Versus Substitute License Plates
Substitute license plates are issued to replace regular series or special interest license plates that are not personalized.
Duplicates are made to replace personalized and some special license plates. If both personalized license plates are lost or stolen, duplicates with the same configuration cannot be issued. You must apply for another configuration or apply for regular series replacement license plates.
Fees for duplicate/substitute plates are generally $20, but special plates can be $35-73 to replace. They also have a 1960s Legacy plate that’s gold on black
There are 13 million registered cars in California. Can you imagine the logistics in changing 1/5 of those every year?