Another top tip is to drill with the protective film still in place or masking tape on both sides where you are drilling to stop the plastic shattering / crazing.

Or buy metal plates and number plate surrounds that have multiple holes in the moulding that will line up with the holes / depressions in the front bumper.

A handy hint I abide by is to drill through from the back of the plate and reflective film. Doing this, you don't push the film off the plastic and so avoiding air bubbles around your holes.

And sounds silly but use a brand new "sharp" decent drill bit.

A blunt drill bit will mess up the reflective backing.

And sounds silly but use a brand new "sharp" decent drill bit.

A blunt drill bit will mess up the reflective backing.

Also if you drill through from the back with a brad pointed wood bit like the one bellow it will cut a very neat hole in reflective backing and then the plastic without any risk of cracking the plate when it breaks through the other side

http://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-brad-point-wood-bits-5-x-85mm/48193

Obviously you can buy these from most diy stores

Better to sandwich the plate between two pieces of wood clamped together and yes new bit 

No blow-outs cracking etc 

Mine came with screw nails front and back but unfortunately the garage used non stainless screwnails which means I've got rusty screwnails plus some delamination where the plates were originally drilled, a fairly poor job really, I would have thought that it would have been kind of obvious to use stainless screwnails but maybe they cost a few pence more than the cheapo ones the garage used instead!

 

WTF is a screwnail? 

 

Most people never use stainless (or even decent plated mild steel ones) screws as they no longer have the car when they start to rust.

 

Personally I hate them being screwed on anyway, so use some decent 3M tape... and lots of it, or better still numberplate surrounds.

I used one of these on my last car's plates. Perfect hole, plus a dab of Mrs Mnky's clear nail varnish into the hole. Never had any water ingress and the plates stayed looking perfect for the 5 years I had it.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/erbauer-tile-glass-drill-6-x-76mm-x-4-7mm-shank/14855?kpid=14855&cm_mmc=Google-_-Product%20Listing%20Ads-_-Sales%20Tracking-_-sales%20tracking%20url&cm_mmc=Google-_-Shopping%20-%20Tools-_-Shopping%20-%20Tools&gclid=Cj0KEQjwvOC5BRCb_8yNmZ_ls9IBEiQACTz8vjX8DTfwtGv3HhbcVqWFu98ofY-x1TknE9y-BjXEwkIaAnoq8P8HAQ

Better to sandwich the plate between two pieces of wood clamped together and yes new bit

No blow-outs cracking etc

Or just sharpen your drill bit if its blunt, you should be re-grinding it for plastic anyway to around 60 degree as opposed to the standard 118... Still the wood is just an unnecessary way to make your holes more likely to wander. A brad bit will just save you re-grinding your bits :-)

It's suprising the nunmber of rear plates that arn't fitted straight, even when stuck or bolted on.

 

You pay 10's of thousands for a car and the dealers can't even put the number plates on properly .

Because they give the job to the 17yr old apprentice who knows naff all.

Got the job done on Saturday.  Had to first heat up the double sided tape with a hairdryer to then carefully peel away the plates that were stuck on.  The pre-drilled holes in the boot lid worked a treat with the plate surround, slip new plates in and close the surround, done.  Front worked the same, there were 4 holes available and being the plastic bumper meant I could use some quality screws straight into these, surround mounted slipped the front plate in too with no issues...!