Where can you paint a car license plate?

Is it possible to tint the numbers on a car yourself?

The operation of any car inevitably leads to the fact that license plates lose their original appearance.

As a result of exposure to rain, sand, stones and various reagents on the road surface, the symbols on the license plates can quickly be erased.

Since driving a car with unreadable registration plates is strictly prohibited, a logical question arises: is it possible to tint the license plates on a car?

Reasons for rapid deterioration of numbers

The condition of the license plate may depend on a number of factors . The first is, of course, mileage: the greater it is, the higher the degree of wear of the numbers.

In addition, the decal may be affected by the conditions in which the vehicle is used. For example, driving a car in the city has much less impact on the paint than in harsh driving conditions.

Some car enthusiasts try to protect their license plates by placing them in special metal frames.

Also, the state license plate can be erased very quickly if the quality of its manufacture is low . So, it may be that the car owner ordered a duplicate number plate from a private company, but low-quality materials were used for production.

This can cause it to wear off and become unreadable after just a few months, and in some cases even after the first rain.

Fortunately, in practice such numbers are quite rare. Much more often, numbers wear out as a result of the banal effects of time.

By law, it is prohibited to operate a car with unreadable license plates. Ignoring this requirement may result in a fine of 500 rubles.

What to do if the license plate on your car is erased? Some people decide to tint their license plates. But is this legal?

Is it possible to tint license plates?

This question interests many car enthusiasts, but it is very difficult to find a definite answer to it.

On the one hand, the numbers are a state document that is prohibited from being changed or corrected. On the other hand, if even one letter or number is erased from the license plates, this will be a fair basis for issuing a fine from an attentive traffic inspector.

However, you must agree that making a duplicate or going through the procedure of replacing a state license plate every time is not a very tempting prospect.

Ultimately, we can conclude that touching up license plates is more likely allowed than prohibited..

The following arguments can be made:

1. The tinting procedure does not imply changing or correcting the number, since it only allows you to restore existing information and improve the quality of its perception.
2. There is not a single by-law or law that directly prohibits such a procedure.

So, it is allowed to tint numbers manually, however, one should take into account the state standards prescribed in ST RK 986-2012.

Thus, license plates must comply not only with the requirements for the font, size and thickness of letters and numbers, but also contain intact security elements.

These include holograms - these are negative or positive ellipses (with the KZ symbol), which are evenly distributed - over the entire surface of the license plate, at a distance of five centimeters from each other, as well as a three-dimensional traveling wave.

What to do if the paint on your car license plates has worn off? Minor scratches and chips may be carefully touched up, and this should not cause any complaints from police officers.

However, repainting the entire surface of the license plate will violate the relevant standards, since the holograms will disappear and the surface of the license plates will lose its reflective properties.

So, tinting the letters and numbers on the license plate with black paint meets the requirements of GOST, because it does not change its visual appearance. Therefore, what is not prohibited must be permitted. There is nothing illegal about this, that's for sure .

Recommendations for proper painting

Before you start painting the numbers, they need to be properly prepared..

To do this, remove them from the car, wash them thoroughly and dry thoroughly. Then degrease the license plate and begin restoring it to its original condition.

To prevent black paint from getting on the white part of the numbers, carefully cover them with regular masking tape . This way you will ensure that the car’s registration plate complies with GOST standards.

Having gone through the preparation stage, you should begin choosing paint, and for some this can become a whole problem, because the range for choosing black paint is immensely large.

In this case, the main thing is not to purchase non-waterproof types of coloring compositions (watercolor and gouache).

Is it possible to tint numbers on a car with a marker? Yes, and among them, the most convenient option for coloring is considered to be a black permanent marker with a thick rod and a beveled edge.

Due to the alcohol content in its composition, it should not wear off quickly. You can purchase it at all stationery stores.

Having chosen a paint or marker, find a comfortable, bright place and get to work without haste. Experienced motorists do not recommend painting license plates while squatting in front of the car, since most likely the lines will turn out crooked and the white background will be stained with black paint.

The paint should be applied with a thin brush, carefully drawing out the boundaries of letters and numbers.

Self-tinted numbers should last at least 2 months. Their service life directly depends on the quality of the paint used and weather conditions.

Restoring license plates on your own has a number of advantages:

1. Low cost - painting materials should cost several hundred rubles.
2. It won't take much time to recover.
3. An excellent result - the rooms look beautiful.

The problem may be that not all car owners will be able to carry out the painting perfectly . However, operating a car with license plates that do not meet the standard is prohibited by traffic regulations.

In addition, a real license plate painted in this way will look like a fake, and this will definitely arouse interest among police officers.

Video: How to tint a number

Duplicate license plate

Another way to restore a damaged number is to make duplicates.

In big cities you can easily find several companies engaged in this business within the framework of the law.

This method is much more convenient and faster than the first (the work can only take about half an hour), but its disadvantage is its high cost.

Thus, the cost of producing one issue for 2019 is about 1,500 rubles, and a set of two issues is more than 2,000 rubles.

To make a duplicate, you must provide the selected company with a vehicle registration certificate.

Complete replacement of signs

How to change license plates on a car if they are erased? To do this, you need to go to the traffic police, write an application, pay the state fee, and then get completely new license plates for the car.

This method is the most expensive of all those described above due to the cost of state duty. At the same time, its significant advantage lies in the fact that all actions take place officially, with the help of government bodies.

So, unreadable car registration plates require special attention . If this seemingly insignificant drawback is ignored, then the motorist should be prepared to pay a fine at any moment.

However, sooner or later, you will still have to start restoring license plates.

Video: What to do if your car license plate is erased?

How to paint license plates

Any car must have its own unique state number, which is equivalent to a vehicle passport. If the vehicle number plate is partially erased or for any other reason it is impossible to read, the vehicle must be stopped from operating until the problems are corrected.

Most drivers try in every possible way to keep the license plate in order, using special sprays or metal mesh, but this will only slightly delay the necessary painting of the license plates.

Reasons for erasing license plates

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If you look at the problem realistically, you can name dozens of reasons why the visibility of license plates, special sprays or metallic ones, can deteriorate, but we have identified only the main influencing factors that every car owner may encounter:

• Poor quality paint or license plate material
• Poor workmanship
• Intentional or accidental physical impact with blunt or hard objects
• Damage after an accident
• Treating roads with salt and chemicals to remove snow in winter

The last point is a very serious problem. Sometimes, in one winter season, car license plates can become completely unusable and there are not many options here. Either contact the traffic police with a request to issue new license plates, which will cost a pretty penny, or visit a service station for restoration, or try to repaint the license plates yourself, spending only money on paint.

Pros and cons of touching up license plates

Wiping off the paint on license plates is a familiar problem for many vehicle owners. Is it possible to paint the license plates yourself if this part of the car is a state document, like an identification code or a number in a person’s passport. Corrections here are punishable by fines, but ordering duplicate numbers or completely changing them is also not the best option due to financial losses. Driving with poorly readable license plates can also result in a fine, so what should you do?

In the end, all the arguments boil down to the fact that touching up the license plates is the only low-cost option so as not to have problems with the law later. In fact, touching up the numbers and letters of a car has nothing to do with corrections or changes. This is only a partial restoration of information, improving readability, as well as long-distance perception. In addition, there is no law that prohibits touch-up procedures.

When producing state license plates, regular black and white paint is used. The black paint covers the embossed characters, giving the license plate a clear appearance against the white background without blending in or making it difficult to read in the glare of headlights.

Eyeliner or tinting of the white background is strictly prohibited, because it has a special coating that has good reflective properties.

Loss of light reflection entails a violation of GOST and may be a reason for the traffic police to issue a fine. Tinting black letters and numbers does not violate GOST requirements and does not in any way affect visual perception.

How to tint car license plates

If you need to tint the license plate of your car, it is important to choose the right paint. There are many different types of paints available in car service centers and hardware stores, and you can use almost any, but professionals advise choosing between nitro paint and oil paint. It is best to pay attention to good hydro- and frost-resistant paints.

Never use gouache or watercolor paints, as they are very unstable and can ruin your sign with streaks within a few days, making it impossible to restore it to its original appearance.

Step-by-step process of touching up license plates with paint

1. To paint a license plate, you need to prepare its surface for painting. Take a scraper or fine-grit sandpaper and very carefully sand down the old black symbols until the metal underneath the paint shows. You can use a blowtorch.
2. If there is corrosion on the metal, the places where it forms should be treated with rust converters.
3. Take a solvent and degrease the metal surface. You can cover the numbers and letters with a primer, in which case the numbers will last an order of magnitude longer.
4. The state number is painted with white automotive enamel, for example PF-115.
5. After drying, take a wooden board that is slightly longer than the number and stretch any thick fabric over it. Secure it to the board using a staple gun or small nails.
6. Apply paint to the fabric.
7. Carefully place the license plate with the convex side on the fabric. This method will be used to paint the border of the license plate.
8. Carefully peel the number from the fabric and let it dry.
9. The same procedure is carried out with the second number.

To avoid paint drips, dry the room only in a horizontal position!

Step-by-step process of touching up license plates with a marker

When using a permanent waterproof marker, you can restore characters painted in black paint without much time and money, without affecting the white background.

1. The surface of the license plate must be thoroughly washed and wiped, having previously degreased it.
2. It is better to choose a marker with a blunt end to minimize gaps in the old paint.
3. Place thin plastic or cardboard along the outline of the letters to prevent them from slipping onto the white background.

If the marker slips onto a white area, immediately and carefully correct your mistake using a cloth soaked in solvent. As a last resort, you can use baking soda, but there is a risk of damaging the white paint finish.

Forget about fines from cameras! An absolutely legal new product - Traffic Police Camera Jammer, hides your license plates from the cameras that are installed in all cities. More details at the link.

• Absolutely legal (Article 12.2);
• Hides from photo and video recording;
• Suitable for all cars;
• Works through the cigarette lighter connector;
• Does not cause interference to radios and cell phones.

The traffic police told whether it is legal to tint car license plates

With the onset of bad weather, motorists are increasingly faced with the unpleasant question of the readability of state registration plates.

Road slush and bad weather are the main enemies of car cleanliness.

And on country roads, the problem of unreadable license plates takes on enormous proportions.

It is worth reminding the motorist that unreadable state registration plates are subject to administrative liability under Part 1 of Art. 12.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, namely a warning or a fine of 500 rubles.

Administrative punishment occurs in cases where a traffic police officer cannot read at least one number or letter from a distance of 20 meters from the car.

Bad weather is much more insidious in conditions of constant changes in positive and negative thermometer readings, when the dirt has time to freeze on the numbers.

Hard brushes are used, which leads to the black paint peeling off the license plates.

With each such procedure, the license plates become unreadable and drivers are faced with the question of how to fix everything legally?

It is possible to contact the State Traffic Inspectorate or third-party organizations to obtain a new license plate plate.

The cost of this plate is 1000 rubles per piece.

Dmitry Leshchukov, traffic safety promotion inspector of the Center for Supervision and Propaganda of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Ivanovo Region:

“However, most owners are not ready to spend that kind of money for a new number and resort to various tricks.

Car enthusiasts begin to tint the numbers themselves using a brush with black paint or a marker. There is nothing illegal about this, but it is worth doing everything correctly.

Firstly, the white background of the numbers must be reflective; therefore, simply covering up the numbers with white paint is strictly prohibited.

Secondly, painting with black paint is allowed only along the embossed outline, without crawling onto the white background.

Thirdly, it is prohibited to add additional symbols to license plates that were not available at the State Traffic Inspectorate departments when issued.

Fourthly, it is prohibited to add additional items to the license plates that may limit their visibility (plexiglass, mesh).

The driver is obliged to constantly monitor the condition of the vehicle, in particular, check its appearance in order not to receive these unpleasant five-hundred-ruble fines every time.

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If you have landed on this page. So you are interested in restoring your license plate number. On this site and in this text we have collected all the complete information about replacing license plates.

In our many years of work, we have noticed how much a car owner worries about restoring license plates if he has encountered this problem for the first time. When a car is first registered, the license plates received usually last for several years, and then gradually begin to lose their appearance. And this is a normal phenomenon, because the car is constantly in use, and bad roads, dirt, and frequent car washes sooner or later lead to the need to restore license plates.

The issuance of license plates is carried out by the traffic police when registering a car, but the replacement of state license plates is carried out by companies with a license for this type of activity.

Restoring state license plates without unnecessary red tape and visits to the traffic police

Today it is not difficult to restore the state number. You do not need to write applications to the traffic police and take any certificates if you need to replace license plates in Moscow. All you need to do is contact the manufacturer with your vehicle documents and identification.

Restoring a lost license plate follows the same procedure as replacing a damaged one. Based on the documents for the car and the presence of the customer’s passport or driver’s license, the car’s license plate number is replaced on the day the client contacts us. If you are not a Muscovite or you need license plates delivered throughout the city or to other regions, you can also contact us and our managers will advise you on how to restore the license plate on your car and deliver it to your address or to another city.

Replacement and restoration of old numbers

Often our clients are interested in restoring rooms if they are available, but damaged. We are not engaged in restoration, because such signs will no longer comply with GOST. Only replacing old numbers with new ones solves the problem with duplicates and guarantees their full compliance with GOST. Remember, we do not repair signs of questionable quality or hand-paint plates because we are responsible for the quality of each number we make.

Official restoration of car license plates and delivery

Here on the website you can find out how much the procedure for restoring license plates costs, as well as the opportunity to do them on cars without registration. Each license plate we restore for a car in Moscow complies with GOST, we have a license and certificates for the materials we work with. Our production and office are located in Moscow, but it is not a problem for us to deliver the number throughout the city or organize its delivery to other areas and regions. In our office you can change license plates on your car with any numbers and region.

Is it possible to tint a car’s license plate with a marker yourself and what are the consequences?

Road conditions in Russia and the obligation of drivers to clean their license plates, unfortunately, tend to quickly erase them. At the same time, there are as many as 3 options in order not to run into a fine, but the most inexpensive of them is to simply tint the license plate yourself with a marker. What could this mean in 2019 and how to do it correctly?

If the number is erased

In this case you can:

• make a duplicate of the license plate: cost - from 400 to 1,500 rubles, depending on the region and the specific organization,
• just touch up the state registration plate (hereinafter - GRZ) yourself: the price of the issue is equal to the price of the touch-up tool - marker, paint and the like,
• to replace numbers in the traffic police: cost - state duty in the amount of 2,000 rubles plus replacement of the registration certificate - 500 rubles.

As you can see, the cheapest way is to paint the numbers. You can do this in practice yourself, but carefully and knowing the relevant GOST requirements.

Is it possible to paint over erased letters and numbers of a car number yourself?

By law no. In practice, you will most likely not get anything for this. So, let's talk about everything in order!

Clause 7.15 of the List of Malfunctions of the Basic Provisions of the Traffic Regulations states that the license plate number and its installation must comply with GOST R 50577-93. In the Rules themselves, of course, there is no clear prohibition on tinting the GRZ

GOST prescribes a number of requirements for license plates for their manufacturer, and we, accordingly, cannot violate these requirements either.

Thus, paragraph 3.6 of GOST indicates that each number and letter must be the same height. Well, this is a matter of accuracy, and we will not violate this point if we simply do not go beyond the convexity of the number symbols.

Paragraph 4.3 also states that the license plate field has a reflective coating, and paragraph 4.10 states that a holographic coating is also applied to the front side of the license plate. This means that by touching up the numbers with a marker or almost any other tool, we will violate the integrity (paint over) of this coating. However, reflectivity is provided only for the white background of the numbers. But the hologram is also applied to numbers and letters, and in principle we will not find a corresponding tool for them.

What to do?

In practice, everything turns out to be much simpler. The fact is that the hologram for 2019 is used only to protect numbers from counterfeiting.

The Code of Administrative Offenses has 2 parts of one article regarding punishment for license plates:

• the first contains a sanction of 500 rubles for violating the above GOST,
• the second can lead to deprivation of rights for modification, hiding, driving without license plates.

So, one of them - part 2 of article 12.2 - establishes deprivation of rights for modifying numbers. This logically seems the closest that can be drawn to independently tinting the number with a marker as a modification due to hiding part of the hologram.

But this article is not applicable, since there is actually no modification here and cannot be. Modification is purposeful actions to make the GRZ look different - replacing letters and numbers, hiding them from cameras. In our case, there is not even an intention for such a modification.

The first part of the same article provides for a 500 ruble fine for driving a car with license plates installed in violation of GOST, unreadable or non-standard. This article is also not applicable, here's why:

• Our license plates are legible (of course, because we tinted them specifically to avoid this fine),
• they cannot be considered non-standard, because these are still the same gas protection devices that were manufactured for us by an accredited organization,
• and for violation of GOST, the article provides for a fine only for installation with such - they are installed correctly (corresponding height, angle of inclination, etc.), touching up is, obviously, not the process of installing a license plate.

Therefore, it is possible to tint car numbers in 2019. Although this violates the rules of GOST, there is no punishment for this. However, in practice, in rare cases such an action may be classified as a modification. But such qualification is illegal and can be appealed.

Punishment also should not follow the law if we violate clause 4.3 of the State Standard - the height of the symbols will be different, for the same reason mentioned above.

What can I use to tint it?

As you understand from what you read above, there are not and cannot be any certified or even special means for touching up license plates.

The only important subtlety here is that the substance cannot spread from rain or water onto the roads. Imagine if you paint over the groz with such a composition, and on the way it will spread and... will lead to the number being unreadable. In this situation, there will already be a charge for deliberately concealing the alphanumeric designations of the number. And this is punishable by the second part of Article 12.2 and leads to possible deprivation of rights. No, not according to the law, since there was no intention to hide the numbers. But according to established judicial practice, rights can be deprived quite easily.

Therefore, it is better not to use a regular stationery marker to tint numbers. Car dealerships sell special black markers that serve just this purpose. Just make sure in any case that it is moisture resistant.

And why, in fact, the number was erased - is there a guarantee for registration marks?!

Logical question! In fact, license plates have a warranty period during which the manufacturer is obliged to eliminate defects. The unreadability of the number is a drawback.

The warranty on license plates is 3 years – clause 4.17 of GOST.

In fact, this means that the car owner is obliged to exchange the license plate during the warranty period. But the warranty case cannot apply to situations where the numbers have signs of wear, and this happens very often. In fact, GRZs are erased not due to natural wear and tear on the road, but precisely when we clean them ourselves with brushes and rags, especially dry. In this case, the warranty exchange may be refused.

To replace worn-out numbers, instead of tinting them, you should contact the manufacturer - the traffic police department where you received them, with a written application for a replacement. It’s even easier to submit an application online through the official website of the traffic police. Very often they are considered and the employees themselves invite replacements. In your request, please indicate exactly this:

On such and such a date, such and such a division of the MREO traffic police issued me such and such state registration plates. Based on clause 4.17 of GOST R 50577-93, the warranty service life of the GRZ is 3 years. However, the state registration certificates issued to me in such and such a division of the traffic police MREO have become unusable. Based on the above, I request that the state registration plates be replaced.