You may be in for an unpleasant surprise one day if you don't. I was wondering how my front plate had gotten bent, and discovered the entire assembly was very loose and nearly ready to come off in my hand.

Removing the plate revealed that one of the three anchors that hold the plate holder to the bumper cover had come apart completely, and a second was very loose. Only the anchor on the top was still reasonably tight.

The anchors are small plastic pins that engage a plastic sleeve (the pin comes from the back of the bumper cover, and the sleeve fits in from the front of the license plate bracket). The entire retention force depends on the concentric "threads" of the pin keeping a grip on the sleeve. Needless to say there isn't much grip there, and I'm guessing the automatic car wash tugged at it just enough to pop one of the pins loose.

My fix was to slightly enlarge the hole in the bumper cover and use a plastic rivet (similar to the type used on the cowling over the cabin air filter) to attach the bracket. The downside to this fix is that if something does pull on the license plate bracket really hard, it's likely to damage the ungodly expensive bumper cover instead of just popping off the license plate bracket...but at 6:30PM on a Sunday night my chance of finding the "correct" part were nil.

 

I purchased the front plate kit an added it myself since my FEH did not come with one. The kit came with 3 plastic pop-rivets that I had to borrow a air pop rivet gun to install because my manual rivet gun was to small for the shaft of the plastic rivets. I thought at the time that it was not going to hold up and now you have confirmed my fears. I think that I will install push rivets like you did, those should hold it better.

Thanks for the idea.

Mike

 

I don't need a front plate and thought I would just take off the holder when I got my 2007 last week. I can't figure out how I should take it off! Any hints?

 

Steve - thanks for the heads-up. Those of us legally bound to display a front plate need to find a more secure attachment method. Stay-tuned.

 

Thanks for the "heads-up" Steve... Though I haven't noticed anything loose with my front plate. Though; when I first purchased my FEH, it did seem loose and I was able to tighten it up (thought it was a Fri Night or Mon Morning Special like my '92 Ranger was - fenders not trimmed correctly and the horn button assembly on the steering wheel came off in my hand while leaving the dealership when purchased...)

I'd have to recheck mine, but I could have sworn my plate holder was attached with screws...

 

When an escape is brought into a dealership the front plate braket is installed, unfortunately this process includes drilling holes in the front bumper cover and securing the plate holder with rivets. It is not very secure and if the plate were to get caught on something it could potentially cause damage to the front bumper cover that would require replacement.