Just bought this used A4 Avant and I find that I cannot attach a license plate in the rear. The square holes where the little brackets pop with the screw holes are fubared and I cannot attach the plastic pop ins you get at the auto parts store. The material in that part of the hatch is all messed up. I guess I need to replace that license plate piece in the middle of the hatch? Where I can source this part online?

Any other ideas to get a license plate attached to my car so I can drive it legally?

 

pics please?

Maybe i'm confused... but can't you just take like some plyers or something and twist turn that out? then put a new one in?

 

Three of the 4 are fubared. I have inserts in the outside top two which aren't for US plates. I can connect my plate in any one of these 3 holes but not the others. You can see the previous owner just created his own screw holes above the existing square ones. I cannot screw into those holes. This materialis not very workable and just continues to break. When I screwed the plate into the top left plastic insert for non-US plates, the material near it which was already messed up continued to malform near it. I am at a loss. The only thing I can think of is to replace that entire piece on the hatch with the keyhole below the rings. Is that even possible?

While I'm back here, the original inserts are inside the hatch jingling around in there. I didn't see any screws holding in the trim on the inside of the hatch. Do I just yank and it will pop off and I can get those out?

Thanks again

 

if you are going to keep the car for a while, then i would reccomend some rubber cement, or any other substance that has super stick power. I mean it couldn't hurt, the license plate area on your car is pretty messed up anyway...... just an idea

 

Fill and drill, my friend. Sand out all the crap, fill with epoxy, let harden, then drill it out and run self-tapping screws into it. I would use JB Weld, the stuff with the metal filings in it so the screw will really bite into it.

 

cyberlogicx - Took your advice. Don't have pics yet, but the JB Weld was not able to fill in the large holes. It made them a bit smaller, but still not "filled in" whatsoever to be able to drill and use screws. I tried to let the stuff get a little harder so I could try again, but the time it takes to feed a baby is longer than I should have waited. By the time I checked back, it was too hard to spread. I'll post pictures after the kids go to bed.

 

worst care just use 3M both sided tape. it will hold strong.

 

Yeah, the JB weld sets up pretty quickly. The 3M tape is a pretty good idea, but it makes the plate easy for someone to rip off. People steal plates for all sorts of messed up reasons, and the less work they would have to do the easier a target your plate would be. If you don't want to try to finish filling the holes, you could always go with a universal type bracket. You drill and mount it, then you attach the plate to it with regular plate screws.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Universal-Tag-Bracket-Front-License-Plate-Holder-Auto_W0QQcmdZViewItem
QQcategoryZ42611QQihZ007QQitemZ170113238048QQrdZ1Q QsspagenameZWDVW

Kinda like that one. Check Autozone or such. They might have something like that. Good luck!

 

Ended up gettinga $5 Autozone bracket and drilling two new holes. That worked great.

But you know what my main problem was? The screws I was using were too long! I thought that when the screw was tightening up, the square plastic insert was expanding and popping out of the hole, but in reality what was happening was the tip of the screw was bottoming out on the metal behind the hole and simply pushing the plastic insert out of the hole, destroying the hole in the process. Duh! I wonder how many other Audi/VW folks have this problem. I looked at the intact front license plate screws and indeed they were about a half inch shorter than the Autozone ones. So Audi/VW folks - don't use generic screws to hold in your license plates! They are too long!

 

Yeah, when I picked my car up, the stealership gave them to me. Glad to hear it worked for you!