The License Plate on Our Panamera

The other day, I was about to take our Panamera out of the driveway when I glanced at the license plate and noticed that the angle was clearly wrong.

Wait—why is it bent like that?! (ﾟдﾟ)

I wondered if something had hit it, but if that were the case, I’d expect the plate to be dented, so that didn’t seem likely. I tried straightening it by hand, but it wouldn’t budge. When my husband took a look, he said:

“Hmm… this was probably deliberate. It’s strange for a license plate to be bent at that angle. Someone clearly did this by hand.”

Seriously…? (-_-)

The thought that someone had tampered with our beloved Porsche really bothered me, so I decided to check the dashcam, just in case. I didn’t expect there’d be much we could do even if it had caught something, but I took out the SD card and went through the mountain of footage one file at a time. In the end, there was nothing.

Our driveway happens to be right on a route used by local elementary and middle school students, so maybe a child had done it. Or perhaps it was someone with a grudge against us… (Though I like to think we’re a pretty harmless family! lol)

Straightening the License Plate

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

I hadn’t realized how easily it came off. Without its license plate, the Panamera looked strangely lifeless—almost as if its soul had gone missing. (lol)

I brought the plate inside and set about bending it back into shape. My husband told me:

“It’s aluminum, so it should bend back pretty easily. Put it against something with a rounded edge, like a table, and press on it. That should do the trick.”

I gave it a gentle push, and it straightened out more easily than I expected.

It wasn’t perfectly straight, but once I reattached it, the bend was barely noticeable.

Vandalism Against a Porsche

We live in an area where Porsches and other imported cars are a common sight, so our Panamera doesn’t exactly turn heads. We’d never had any serious trouble before, although someone did scratch the hood of the 970 Panamera Edition we used to own.

Some time after the Panamera was delivered, I noticed a long scratch on the hood, as if someone had dragged something across it.

It was hard to see from certain angles and in some lighting, so I had no idea when it happened… (It’s difficult to make out in the photo below, too.)

Still, I didn’t want to leave it as it was, so that evening I visited three nearby gas stations and repair shops. At the first shop, they told me:

“With a scratch like this, we’d have to repaint the entire hood. Porsche’s paintwork is exceptional, and we can’t guarantee we’d be able to match it perfectly. We’d recommend having the repair done at a Porsche dealer, if possible.”

The second shop said they could repair it, but quoted a pretty steep price. At the third, they told us, “We’re about to close—come back tomorrow.” (Yikes…)

Eventually, we realized that might have been their indirect way of turning us down. (lol) We contacted H. at the dealership and arranged to have the car repaired through our insurance. If I remember correctly, all we had to pay was the ¥100,000 deductible.

We didn’t have any more trouble after that, but the bent license plate brought back those unpleasant memories.

Whatever the car, it’s precious to its owner, so please don’t vandalize it. Even if no one finds out, I believe that what goes around comes around eventually.

I wonder if having a garage with a shutter would help prevent this kind of thing… What do you think?