Jesus Christ. Isn’t it enough that car dealers rape you on finance charges and extended warranties and paint sealant and God knows what? Oh NO—they have to put an ugly ass sticker or cheap chrome applique badge or hideous license plate frame on the back of your car that ADVERTISES THE FACT THAT YOU’VE BEEN SCREWED BY A DEALER. [Note: I’m not saying that Mr. Barrett was anything but open, honest and above board. May the Bricklin owner rest in peace.] If you want to advertise on TTAC, you have to pay for it. ’Cause that’s how advertising works. But if a car dealer wants to plaster his or her name on the butt of YOUR car YOU have to pay for it. And even if you accept this ass-backwards idea, why for FS can’t these guys at least TRY to match the manufacturer’s typeface and style? I’d recommend CarMax to all my friends who chew gum. But I had them pull that sticker off my GL before I ever rolled out of the customer handover area. Not on MY gas-sucking SUV you don’t.
Look at the bright side! They used to screw the dealer plaque to the deck lid, not always straight. Now you can remove it in a few minutes with a hair dryer, fishing line and Goo Gone.
Was hired by Ford at age 22 and went right out and ordered a 5-O Mustang before my first day of work.
I specifically told the salesman NOT to put a sticker on the back. Of course the car had an effing sticker on it at delivery. I went off the deep end.
Took my A-Plan business elsewhere after that.
Worse, some dealers apply the license plate frame during oil change or any service!
in opposition I offer that dealer personnel who see motorists with their logos smile and solidify relationships. Towing companies know where to haul strandeds. Businessmen who support their communities benfit from the promotion. Could go on for some time with additional benefits.
Robert, your criticisms are most often valid. please look past the agreed tackiness of a few rear ends and cut the dealers some slack. Heaven knows these folks need a break once in awhile.
You mean, “you’re spreading the word.”
These dealer badges seem to proliferate in the Midwest and East coast for some reason, not so much in the West. Although there is a local Ford dealer that uses a hideous looking star-shaped badge.
My favorites though are the dealer frames that are so huge they obscure important parts of the license plate. Like, the state. And the bottom part of the alpha-numeric, so you can’t tell E’s from F’s. And why on earth do owners leave these things on?
This reminds me of another pleasant surprise at my last car buying experience. When I told the salesman that the I did NOT want a dealer sticker placed on the car that I was ordering, he replied “Don’t worry, we never put those on.”
I agree, Robert. At least they don’t stamp the dealer name onto truck bumpers anymore, as was once the practice on painted steel bumpers.
I’ve actually required dealers to remove the sticker/decal/refrigerator magnet-like plaque from cars before I would accept delivery. Not a single one gave me a hard time about it.
The big trend around here seems to be a giant decal in the rear window naming the dealer’s web site. For the life of me I can’t understand why buyers accept this. Do they have no pride in their ride? Do they not understand the value to the dealer of driving around a billboard? Or worst of all, do they not look back when driving and have never noticed it?
Re: Dealer loaner – then there must be a butt load of loaners on the streets here. I would estimate that 1 in 15 cars has the dealer URL displayed. Of course, that may be a reflection of the generally crappy condition of many of the rides I see.
I haven’t seen the practice of dealer applied stickers or emblems in quite some time. I usually wind up with the license plate frames with the dealer’s logo and that doesn’t bother me because they can be removed with almost no effort.
@ N85523:
Yeah, I remember the days when a rear bumper was a dealer add on pickups. THey always had the crappy painted one with the logo stamped in there…
My 94 Chevrolet Cavalier has a huge dealer badge exactly like the one in the picture (except it is from Rinke Cadillac) on the trunk. It doesn’t bother me much, though it is probably because I picked it up off Craigslist for $400. When you get to that price level, you stop being picky.
@ClutchCarGo,
Dealers around here only install that rear-glass applique on their loaner cars.
quid pro quo. If you get a car with a sticker on it, make sure you have a big sticker advertising your place of business and then ask which car belongs to the general manager :) That way it’s a fair trade.
I always say “no stickers please” when purchasing a new car. Can’t stand it.
ClutchCarGo
I would think (I hope) the stickers on the windows are typically on dealer loaners. I would be surprised to hear of anyone agreeing to that!
It’s not only taboo to do this in Calif. The consumer also rips off the license frame and placard insert, unless of course it’s from a Beverly Hills store.
100% agree Robert. The first thing I do when I pick up a car is remove any dealer logos, plate frames, badges, decals, etc. Unless they’re going to knock something off the price for the exposure of course…
I was going to start a hobby business that made stickers that said “Get raped at…” that would go next to the dealership sticker or tag frame used by dealers.
The worst was when I went to a Honda dealer on my way home because my heat shield for my catalytic converter was dragging on the ground. The asshole service manager tried to explain to me that I would get better service if I allowed them to put their license plate border on my car in place of the one where I bought the car. I kindly told him to never mind the bollocks and fix my car. I never went back. I also phoned my dealer and told them what happened. I’m sure there was an ugly phone call between them after that. And this wasn’t some backwater dealer, this is a state of the art flagship 50 million dollar facility. What was really REALLY creepy was watching through the windows into the service bay and I saw two cars being swapped out with the new logo. That sound in the creepy part of the movie where spiders are crawling all over a corpse was playing inside my head. Reminds me of the evil toy factory in Season of the Witch.
I’ve never bought a new car, and likely never will; I’ll have trouble getting through even half of my “wanna own one someday” list of old cars before I’m too old to drive or the oil runs out. But if I were to buy a new car, I’m sure the dealer and I could come to terms on a reasonable and equitable advertising fee to be paid to me for advertising their business as I drive around. I’d offer a couple of different options — per kilometre or a flat per-month rate — so the dealer could pick the plan that’s right for him.
Or perhaps we’d bypass all that “coming to terms” hootenanny and I’d just begin invoicing the dealer monthly, with interest charges accruing for nonpayment of balance due.
I’m glad the dealers have mostly gone to license plate frames. They are easy to remove if you like. The old way of punching a few holes in the car was really obnoxious. The later generation of glue on stickers could at least be removed with careful use of a heat gun and solvents.
I don’t mind the license plate frame adverts. Easy enough to remove if you don’t like them.
All of which is nothing compared to the clothing and handbag companies which actually get people to pay a premium price to have the company name plastered across the product.
When I order a car I simply state, “No dealership stickers. No dealer front tag. No license frame. Nothing with the dealer’s name on it.” I gently state that these things won’t be there when I come to pick up the car because you (salesman) want the sale to go through.
Hardly ever a problem. Couple times I had to remind them to remove it. Once I told the salesman and he forgot to tell anyone else. There was a license plate screwed onto the front bumper. They removed it and paid for the bumper repair.
When I was younger and more brash, after negotiating a price, I offered to sell advertising space on my vehicle on a per mile basis. They got the hint.
DEZ
My parents have bought their last 5 vehicles from McGinnis Cadillac in Houston. They have an unobtrusive chrome dealer symbol that looks alright on the cars they sell. There wasn’t one to be found on the XLR-v though!
Notify the press: I actually agree whole-heartedly with Mr. Farago on this one.
The dealer license plate brackets are almost as bad, but at least they’re easier to remove. That said, I am amazed that SO FREAKING MANY people keep the damn things on their cars. Ugh.
On the same note, I’ve always wondered why you have to pay for shopping bags with the retailers name on it. I mean, shouldn’t they pay me, for going all over town and advertising their damn store?
A coworker of mine asked that the dealer sticker be removed from his RX-7. They obliged by taking it off with a metal razor blade. They then had to repair the damage to the paint.
I once told a dealer that if I was going to advertise for him, that he would have to pay for it.
I stated mumbling about ‘nothing in the sales contract about me marketing for the dealership…’ and they quickly found a way to take the trunk plate off.
I took the sticker off of my truck, but left the LP frame. I like the dealership from which I bought my truck, and I want them to be around so I can do business with them again. We all pay to wear certain logos, and most of us spread a good experience by word of mouth. What’s the difference? I spread my good experiences with ______ Chevrolet by allowing their LP frame to grace my truck, and I have also left the one from the Ford dealer on my wife’s Mustang for the same reason. Besides, I don’t like a “naked” license plate, and I am not going to pay for one that sucks.
I think your use of the name “Jesus Christ” is offensive.
As to the “ugly ass sticker or cheap chrome applique badge or hideous license plate frame on the back of your car ” I have for many years always told the dealer when purchasing a new car not to put anything on my car, with the exception that I have from time to time accepted a plate frame. On my last purchase I told them to take it off my car.
McGinnis Cadillac in Houston. They have an unobtrusive chrome dealer symbol that looks alright on the cars they sell.
I think their blocky “M” looks kind of wierd. It’s definitely not ugly though. Many of the upper end dealers have gotten better about making good looking logos for their cars.
I just bought a used Mazda 3 from a dealer, and forgot to specify no dealer sticker. Fortunately they don’t put them on anyway. They did put the plate frames on, which were the first things to go.
Locally, there is a Ford dealer that puts huge (6″ high at least) stickers on their cars, featuring some fugly Viking-looking guy. Horrendous.
Some dealer stickers are quite tasteful. White Rock Honda simply puts a small script “White Rock” above the factory Honda logo. I still wouldn’t want it, but better than most alternatives.
Saw a new 370z with an ugly, square dealer plaque on the back, really stuck out from the car and messed up the lines. I think whats worse is states like mine that require front license plates, really looks bad on a car like the 370z.
My ’63 Rambler has a chrome dealer emblem screwed onto the trunk lid. When a car is that old, and an orphan, the obsolete dealer emblem just sort of adds to the story. My car was sold new in Oklahoma. (How the hell it got to Michigan I don’t know)
Does Walmart stick their name on my Xbox just because I bought it there? no.
The company that spend millions designing, developing, testing, and manufacturing my car has the right to put their name on it. The dealer who did nothing more than being located closest to my house does not.
@Dynamic88:
My car was sold new in Oklahoma. (How the hell it got to Michigan I don’t know)
It was probably driven.
I agree with fgbrault, I find using “Jesus Christ” in anger when talking about dealership stickers is quite offensive to me.
That said, I am amazed that SO FREAKING MANY people keep the damn things on their cars.
As one of the FREAKING MANY it’s probably because A) we’re indifferent; B) we’re lazy; C) we’re too cheap to go get another frame; or D) all of the above.
Andy Rooney whined about this a few years ago on 60 Minutes and even then it didn’t bother me.
Still, to appease the B&B, I guess I have to get off my ass and go get another frame.
Some of the older cars here have dealer decals from businesses that used to be in existence about 15-20 years ago. Imagine seeing decals sporting “Royal” or “Carriage”, knowing that these dealers haven’t been in business since GW the Elder was in office.
The classiest decal I’ve seen comes courtesy of Dyer & Dyer Volvo.
There are plenty of dealers in my area (MD) that don’t brand vehicles with advertising stickers anymore, and limit their advertising to license plate frames. The first thing I do after getting home with a new car is remove the dealer-provided license plate frames.
What’s really pathetic is the dealers that don’t have the decency to at least apply their sticker straight and place it in a location that makes it symmetric with respect to factory badging.
[OT] Speaking of crooked stickers, what grinds my gears more than the dealer decals is crooked factory badging. I can’t count the number of “Camry” badges I see on the road each day that are not level, but instead slant downward b/c they’re aligned with the edge of the deck lid. Some are level, so maybe it’s just a artistic flourish used by one of the factories.
I made it clear: A sticker means no acceptance. No sticker was on the car. No BS frame around the plate, either.
The most egregious example I’ve ever seen was a Honda dealership in Texas that used a Texas-shaped dealer badge that was HUGE. I saw a CRX with one of these applied to the hatch lid. It was so big it actually extended from the lower edge of the hatch lid and to a half inch above the spoiler lip.
And then there’s James Wood Chevrolet (also in Texas) that not only sticks them on the back end of the trucks they sell but also put one on either fender between the front wheel and the front door.
Any time I buy a car (new or used)I tell them to take the dealer stickers off of it and not to put any license frames on it. One tried to argue with me and I told him “if you’d like to discuss renting adverting space on my car, I’ll be more than happy to do so with your general manager.” They removed the stickers.
For me the labels work as a way of announcing to the world that you bought your car used . . . IE: a Saturn with a VW dealers badge on it
I don’t make them remove them, I do it myself. They get the cleanup kid out back to do it and that kid does not care and will scratch up the paint. It takes me all of 5 minutes to do it on a new car, and remove the front plate and frame since they are not required in my state.
I will NOT buy one with pinstripes, $250 for a $3 roll of tape is a no-sell, and the idiot putting them on usually used a razor-blade and cut the paint while cutting the ends so it will rust even if they remove them.
Acutally, stickers can work very well at the auctions.
The ones with JD Byrider and about a half dozen other low-end BHPH’s are avoided like the plague. It got so bad that JD now uses another name to liquidate their vehicles at the auctions.
I take the stickers off, myself. It’s usually pretty easy on a new car, but I’ve had some trouble getting them off of used cars that have seen a lot of sun. One used car I bought had two different dealership stickers on it, but a little elbow grease fixed that.
The only time I leave them on is when I buy a really cheap car that I’m not sure will go very far. In those cases, I want to be sure to advertise for the dealership while my car is broken down.
Simple solution – worked great on my wife’s current and my last one as well. Inform salesdude that my fee for whoring myself out is $5,000. They can pay cash or take it off the final negotiated price. Amazingly, not one stealership has offered to take me up on that offer yet. Guess I’m not very marketable! :-p
The classiest dealer logo I’ve ever seen stuck on a car comes courtesy of Moore Cadillac of Richmond, VA. Their sticker says “A Moore” in what was the exact “Cadillac” logo style (and size), and was always placed directly over the “Cadillac” nameplate. Very unobtrusive, classy, and one that I wouldn’t complain about – especially since the dealership is a reasonable place.
Unfortunately, in the past decade, they’ve also taken on Hummer, Saab and Subaru. That sticker doesn’t work worth a damn with any of those logos.
pain sealant?
If they gave you pain sealant it would be far less unpleasant than it is.
James2 :
September 8th, 2009 at 7:12 pm.
As one of the FREAKING MANY it’s probably because A) we’re indifferent; B) we’re lazy; C) we’re too cheap to go get another frame; or D) all of the above.
Andy Rooney whined about this a few years ago on 60 Minutes and even then it didn’t bother me.
Still, to appease the B&B, I guess I have to get off my ass and go get another frame.
Whatever floats your boat; I’m just surprised that more people aren’t bothered by the fact that they’re essentially providing free advertising.
I have a slightly different perspective. I can’t even remember how many new cars I’ve bought, and I’ve never had a dealer quarrel with my request to leave the sticker or plate frame off. Second, over the years I’ve finally gotten to the point where I only buy cars from dealers I’ve come to know as friends, who treat me right all the time. I always leave their sticker or plate frame on. The little bit of free advertising I give them comes back to me many times over in free loaners, car washes, and oil changes. One hand usually washes the other.
I remove the model ID and maker ID from my cars and bikes unless it leaves holes or is clear coated over.
Mechanic doing tire rotation- what is this thing anyway?
Me- 94 golf.
– Who makes it?
– VW
– How do you know?
– I can tell by the way the whole car looks. It looks like a VW Golf.
-Oh. Ok I guess. Seems funny though, a car with no labels or anything.
Most of the time, I yank ’em, but when I have a decent, no-BS sale, I’ll leave the license plate frame on. It doesn’t happen often. But it’s true that there is absolutely no excuse for drilling holes in sheetmetal to attach a dealer plate. The Paul Miller dealerships in Louisville used to be really bad for that, even pop-riveting them to the front fenders above the ‘F-150’ emblems on Ford pickups. This was some time ago and I don’t know if they still do it.
Interestingly, there are some famous dealership stickers that are actually desirable in certain instances. I’m talking about stickers from dealerships that were well-known during the musclecar era for offering their own special versions like Mr. Norm’s Grand Spaulding Dodge out of Chicago, Yenko or Nickey Chevrolet, Tasca Ford, Royal Pontiac, and maybe a few others. I wouldn’t consider seeing one of those on a classic musclecar (particularly if it’s an original sticker) a bad thing.
I guess I’ll be the weird one here. To me some of the badges and frames are just another part of rolling Americana. When I lived in Florida it was not at all uncommon to see cars from all over the US traded in at the local dealers. As a teen I got chummy with some of the dealers and they’d let me roam around the lots, and I started taking the dealer emblems off the trade-ins, and I ended up with quite a collection. My favorites were the plastic ones that looked like they had a strip of wood in the center, I got a bunch of them!
Up here in Michigan LOTS of dealers use plate frames. Some can be tasteful, lots are rather tacky. The last two dealers I have done business with, Labadie Olds of Bay City, and now McDonald Pontiac of Saginaw, both treated me fairly during and after the sale, and fortunately have tasteful chrome-look frames, so I leave them on the car. McDonald also glued an emblem onto the back of my little HHR, and it’s on so tight that I think it will outlast the car itself.
Lastly, back in the mid-90’s when I worked for a large Lincoln-Mercury dealer in Ypsilanti, MI the dealer was well known for their cars that wore their (by that time) reasonably attractive “Sesi Frames” I remember that the sales manager had me go and replace all the frames on the cars in for service with frames from our lot. I remember a fairly new Mustang GT in the shop that had come from the large Ford dealer in Ann Arbor, and he pointed at the frame on it and said “Get that SOB off that car and put a Sesi frame on it!” I did, and for some reason I kept the old frame. I still have it. Don’t ask me why…
Why leave dealership names/logos on? At one time (perhaps no longer) some folks had the notion that a dealer would give better treatment to a service customer if the service department could see the car had been bought at that store.
Robert Schwartz:
Freudian slip. Text amended, if not improved.
I am merciless with the removal of dealer advertising on my cars. The engine isn’t even cold after the first drive home before I go after them.
My latest ride had a plate frame from a particularly noxious local dealer. I actually snapped it off in pieces and THEN got my wrench out to remove the rest of it properly later on.
But, I have to confess to actually adding a dealer license plate frame to one car. My magenta ’67 Wildcat had a plate frame from a local Chevy dealer that proudly proclaimed:
LYMAN SLACK
I found it in a boneyard, and it was really just too perfect to not use, especially since I am a Church of the SubGenius admirer. And it said “Portland” below that, so I could show some pride in my adopted home town.
A couple of pals of mine have very cool “Rancho Rambler” plate frames that I covet.
But as for all the other dealership labels, stickers and plate frames, I say, death is too good for them.
I preferred it the way you had it.
I think most people leave them on because they are ambivalent about the situation. My dealership has stickers that are applied to all cars as soon as the come onto the lot, but they are fairly low key affairs that don’t distract too much from the lines.
I’ve had a total of two customers ask for them to be removed, which we did without complaint. We also have license plate frames, and I have never had a complaint or request for those not to be included. Customers need the rear plate frames if they are getting new plates for the car, as the paper temp tags will fly off if not secured in a frame.
As our state doesn’t require front plates we don’t put them on any cars, but most of the trucks and SUVs coming onto the lot already have front plate brackets on them, so we stick a dealership plate into it just to fill the void. If the customer’s trade has a vanity front plate I always move that over to the new vehicle, and will do the same for rear plate frames, provided they aren’t from another dealer.
Hoping not to be offensive to the readers that were offended, your use of “Jesus Christ” was appropriate. Like you channeled my father.
These days though it’s been cranked up to “What the fuck?”.
How about the opposite: A certain dealer in high-end (largely) mid-engined sports cars slightly SW of Boston not only delivers cars devoid of stealership adornments of any kind, but is more than happy to not molest the front bumpers with something as silly as a (req’d) MA front plate+bracket.
I don’t really see this in CA, thankfully. I’ve often wondered why they don’t do that in the state that has the most cars!
I always make it clear when purchasing a new car that I don’t want anything with the dealer’s name on it as well as a full tank of gas when I pick it up (which is a whole other can of worms…perhaps a good follow up story….).
JustAnotherNerd :
Worse, some dealers apply the license plate frame during oil change or any service!
Even WORSE than that, they apply the license plate before doing the service. I once had a Pontiac in for service, and it came back with the plate. The service was not completed and there were two screws in the passenger floorpan.
This pissed me off to high heaven. I nearly needed a parachute to get back to Earth!
When I bought my Prius, I told the dealer “no stickers, no license plates, no fake plastic dealer tags, please.”
When the car arrived at the dealer, they called me, “It’s still on the truck, come on down!”
I did; we finished up the paperwork, and I went out to see my car. A service guy was just beginning to peel the sticky back tape off of the dealer’s fake metal tag.
Out of frustration and anger (I’ve had it up to “here” with all dealers), I gave him hell. “This car isn’t supposed to have a dealer tag or sticker!” He looked around like he was nervous; as if he might get in trouble for not applying the damned thing.
I pressed on with a determined voice and manner, “This is my car, don’t you dare do it or I’ll complain to the sales manager!”
With that, he put the thing in his pocket (the stickyback had already been exposed, so that couldn’t have been too pleasant), then mumbled an apology, and quickly walked away.
I don’t know if he heard my “Thank you” from behind him. I figured that he probably just didn’t get the word.
I see cars here in the Charlotte area with big Randy Marion stickers on the back window. It takes some serious cojones to put a big window sticker on a new car like that, and it takes a complete fool not to remove it. I don’t get it at all.
And Robert, I’m not offended by the use of “Jesus Christ.” But what’s with taking shots at people who chew gum?
I couldn’t agree more. In fact I remove the MANUFACTURERS logos from my vehicles as well – unless they are sponsoring me and willing to pay for it.
You’re arguing with an industry that still has lots full of pennants, hoods propped up, balloons flying, and huge gawdy hand painted “SALE” signs on the windows. These are dealerships that will put a “Cabriolet” vinyl roof on your Escalade if you so desire it. These are manned by people who answered the ad in the paper that said:”Auto sales people wanted. $100K first year potential. No exp. necessary”
And you want them to try and understand why you don’t want their logo on the trunk lid??
Robert, I also find your use of “Jesus Christ” as a swear word to be highly offensive. I would appreciate it if you would amend the text and replace it with any other cuss word you like so long it as it doesn’t involve the names of any religious deity or figure.
But as to the topic at hand, I hate these dealer badges as well. I removed the one on the first car I bought myself, and made the dealer remove them with each car thereafter. Had a conversaion about it with a dealer once that went something like this:
“Would you please remove that from my car?”
“But don’t you want to tell everyone where you got a great deal?”
“Sure, if you pay me $100 per month.”
“We’ll remove it.”
5 minutes with a hairdryer and some WD40….problem solved. No big thing.
Why do some people insist on imposing their religious values on others? I find THAT just as rude and offensive as if someone walked into my church on a Sunday and used “Jesus Christ!” as an epithet.
As a long-time license plate collector, I watch license plates more than most people, and I believe that a lot of people like their dealer license plate frames. They’ll move to another state and keep the old frame even if it covers up the state name and renewal stickers of the new state’s plate. They’ll leave the part there between the top two boltholes when the rest of the frame has been broken off.
They’ll leave a plastic frame on the car when it’s yellowed from its original white, and a diecast frame until it’s completely pitted and the paint’s gone from the dealer’s name. And, back in the old days when license plates were not yet standardized in size, they would drill and cut the new plate so it would fit in the old dealer frame.
I don’t much care for them myself, but I do have a Beverly Hills Chrysler frame that I ran on half a dozen different Mopar cars and trucks even though I’ve only been in Beverly Hills once.
I don’t really see this in CA, thankfully. I’ve often wondered why they don’t do that in the state that has the most cars!
True. Here in SoCal, where rust is virtually unknown, most dealers go the license-plate frame route. Many of their counterparts back East, where I grew up and where corrosion is a problem, give rust another way in by hammering or screwing their big metal logos into trunk lids. Go figure.
On the plus side, I had a US-built Rabbit with one of those big metal dealer logos. It actually added structural integrity to the miserable little box.
To me, the old Mercedes-Benz of Alexandria (VA) logo was the classiest: a single chrome asterisk over the model number number of the car. Therefore, an E350 would be an E350*. Dope.
They’ve since abandoned this practice in favor of a medium-sized colored Mercedes-Benz logo on the grille and trunk lid; purely tasteless and significantly inferior to their previous design.
Dave M.:
“Hoping not to be offensive to the readers that were offended, your use of “Jesus Christ” was appropriate. Like you channeled my father.
These days though it’s been cranked up to “What the fuck?””
Amen. Sometimes used in sequence, even!
My little Ford Ranger had nary a sticker or a badge on it, and was free of license plate frame ridiculousness. That’s part of the reason I’ll be hitting small-town Crossville Ford-Lincoln-Mercury again one of these days when the wife’s car bites the dust, instead of the larger Ford dealer that is 30 miles closer to home (which also happens to be part of a huge “automotive family,” as they call it– a good sign to stay away!)
Her car will probably last us several more years without major incident (knock on wood), but still– buyers remember the treatment they receive at a dealership, and the lack of shameless promotional material on my Ranger was just icing on the cake in my experience with that establishment. I had a very good experience with them all the way around.
The wife’s Nissan Sentra was bought used from a Honda dealer that is part of a small syndicate of dealerships, so they logically put a plate frame on her car before we drove off with it. She didn’t remove it, but she did cover up their toll-free phone number with a BangerMusic sticker.
Hey, if we’re going to have instruments of advertising on our vehicle, we’re going to find a way to advertise the music I play with my instruments!
What’s the big deal? Dealer like to promote his/her store by applying an adhesive sticker and furnishing a license plate bracket. You don’t like- take ’em off. No need to threaten the salesperson or come up with the brilliant “wanna pay me to advertise?” BS. We will gladly remove dealer ID’s upon request. No problem. And we do not put any tags on Camaro or Corvette anyway.
@ johnny ro and Kurt:
Removing the make and model labels will come back to bite you at resale time, as every buyer will automatically assume it means the car was repainted after an accident, and your denial of that just makes you a liar in their eyes. Don’t ask me now I learned this.
Also I was surprised to learn that dealers put their frames on license plates even after routine service. Since most of the public isn’t as aware of automotive details like we are, I bet there are a lot of people who don’t even realze they are driving around with a newly installed license plate frame.