Panamera’s License Plate

The other day, when I went to get into our Panamera parked in the driveway, I casually glanced at the license plate and immediately noticed that the angle was definitely off.

Wait, why is it like this?! (ﾟдﾟ)！

I wondered if something had bumped into it, but if that were the case, the plate would be dented, which it wasn’t. I tried to fix it by hand, but it wouldn’t budge at all. So I asked my husband to take a look, and he said,

“Ah… this is probably vandalism. There’s no way a license plate would be at this angle naturally. It’s definitely the work of someone’s hand.”

Seriously… (-_-)

The thought of “someone vandalized my precious car” made me feel really uneasy, but just to be sure, I checked the dashcam footage. That said, I thought, “Even if there’s evidence, there’s probably nothing we can do…” I took out the SD card and painstakingly reviewed the huge amount of footage, but in the end, nothing was captured.

Our driveway is right on a school route for elementary and middle school kids, so maybe a child played a prank. Or maybe it was someone who holds a grudge against us… (Though I think we live pretty peacefully, haha)

Fixing the License Plate

I couldn’t leave the license plate bent like that, so I decided to fix it right away. I used a screwdriver to remove the screws and took off the plate.

It came off pretty easily. Seeing the Panamera without its license plate felt strange, almost like it had lost its soul (lol).

Then, back inside the house, I tried to straighten the plate. My husband said,

“It’s aluminum, so it should bend back pretty easily. If you press it against something with rounded edges, like a desk, it’ll probably return to its original shape.”

Following his advice, I applied some pressure, and it bent back quite easily.

It didn’t get perfectly straight, but once reattached, it didn’t look out of place at all.

Vandalism Against Our Porsche

We live in an area where Porsches and other foreign cars are common, so no one really gets surprised saying, “Wow, a Porsche!” We’ve never had any major vandalism before, but once, our previous 970 Panamera Edition was scratched.

A while after the Panamera was delivered, one day I noticed a scratch on the hood that looked like it had been scraped with something sharp.

Depending on the angle and lighting, it wasn’t very noticeable, so I had no idea when it happened… (It’s hard to see in the photo below)

But I didn’t want to leave it like that, so that evening I visited three nearby gas stations and repair shops. The first place said,

“With a scratch like this, the whole hood would need repainting. Porsche’s paint technology is amazing, but we can’t guarantee a perfect match here… We recommend having the dealer handle it.”

The second place said they could fix it but quoted a very high price. The third place told me, “We’re about to close, so please come back tomorrow” (lol)…

We finally realized that we were basically being turned down by these shops, so we contacted Mr. H at the dealer and decided to use insurance for the repair. I believe the deductible was about 100,000 yen.

Since then, we haven’t had any more vandalism, but the recent incident with the Panamera’s bent license plate brought back those unpleasant memories.

No matter what car it is, it’s a beloved vehicle to its owner, so please don’t vandalize. Even if you don’t get caught, the sun is always watching, and I believe it will come back to you in some way someday.

I wonder if having a shutter garage would reduce the chances of vandalism… What do you think?