Broken Vent at Ottosteer front plate mount point

[surfrasch]

hey folks, I've had the Ottosteer on since roughly January 2019, worked fine and easy to install. Noticed this summer that the front plate was leaning a bit forward, got underneath today and removed the Ottosteer mount to see what's up. It appears I have multiple broken vent pieces where the Ottosteer is secured. I was worried about this when I did it, didn't think the vents were really secure mounting points. I don't know, we have cold winters in NH, maybe the plastic cracked from the combined stress with the cold and Ottosteer, or maybe the car wash wiped it out......whatever, it's done, got 2.5 years out of it.

Options?? If I replace the vent section (not sure how?), I surely won't put another plate mount attached to the vents. Do any of the various options out there mount to something besides the plastic vents? There's really no need to replace the vents, no one will notice the cracks, they just aren't strong enough for a plate mount in my opinion.

Is there a plate option out there where I could just drill into the damn plastic bumper and put a tap in there i could screw into, and just screw the stupid plate to the bumper like a normal car? Really hate to glue it on, it's so stupid we have to worry about this stuff. Love the car, hate the plate mounts.

Any ideas from the experts here?

 

[Perscitus]

Sorry to hear, sadly replacing the piece you need to now is going to be not as easy as it should and hence, on the expensive side. Search for related threads on and off here.

There are many options out there for you across Etsy, eBay Motors, Amazon, eCommerce vendors, MiC item resellers/jobbers.

Drilling where the front radar module is located is not the best idea. And yes, just as with many other poorly designed and engineered sub-assemblies on these cars, Tesla dropped the ball with the front (and pre-2019 rear) license plate install solutions.

 

[surfrasch]

thanks, I've emailed the quick bandit guys, could have sworn I read somewhere that one doesn't mount to the vents, though it appears to mount there on their web site pics.

 

[orntar]

thanks, I've emailed the quick bandit guys, could have sworn I read somewhere that one doesn't mount to the vents, though it appears to mount there on their web site pics.

It actually grabs the top an bottom of the bumper where the grille is.

I do not have one yet, but I plan on getting one when my M3 comes in.

 

[surfrasch]

thanks, I actually found a better video on how the quick bandit mounts....it's exactly what I'm looking for. I also emailed them, they said this:

"The Quick Bandit is designed to use a reverse clamping action that secures itself to the outer frame of the grill for maximum support while eliminating strain on the delicate vent vanes themselves!"

here's the video.....wish I had done this before, but at that time there wasn't a model available like this.