Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting License plate screws.

I was taking my license plate off the car the other day and the screws wouldn't budge. (just the top) When I thought I finally got them to move, the heads just popped off. Now I have two plugs where there should be screws. (Yeah, I know, I should have used some WD40 or some other kind of oil.)

Has anyone had to deal with that? How should I fix it? Drill out the plugs left by the screws, self tapping screws? What would work best? I would not be too worried about it, except I'm going around trying to get the trunk and back end of the car to stop rattling, so just leaving it won't help that situation much. Besides, what do I do when the other screws get stuck?

Anyway. Just curious what everyone thinks. . .

Yes this happened to me. It is a real problem with these cars. Have two Contours, and had the same problem on both.

Either you snap the screw head, or the metal thread insert starts to turn.


The entire license plate "holder" or assembly is actually plastic, and can be removed from inside the trunk lid.

I removed mine and drilled out the bolt and rethreaded it. It is a metric M5 thread I think.

It might be worth your while to see how much a new plastic assembly costs.

happened to mine, too. The bolts were rusty and the tops snapped right off. I just picked up a drill and drilled out a hole slightly bigger than the screw (accidentally). I found some random white screw-like plugs things that fit inside the holes and its keeping my plate on, so far so good....

I have actual bolts running though mine that when I wanna take the plate off, I have to get a wrench to hold the nut on the backside. The bolts stopped a lot of the rattle from my plate though!

you can get something to pull out the screws, ask your hardware guy