Enclosed Cargo Trailer License Plate Holder, Plastic - Black

Video Transcript for Optronics Enclosed Cargo Trailer License Plate Holder Review

Hey, everybody, Ryan here at etrailer. Today we're gonna be checking out the Optronics license plate holder for enclosed trailers. So with these enclosed trailers, you know, a lot of times they really take a beating, you know, people use 'em for work, they get stored outside, the doors are always getting opened and closed, and what can happen is, you know, the plate frame can kind of just fall apart, you know. It starts to get brittle, it'll crack and everything else, and keeping your license plate attached to your trailer is really important, that way, you know, you'll remain legal and, you know, everything will be good to go there. So this setup is gonna work as a great replacement, and that was our case today, even an upgrade, you know, if you have one that's kind of flimsy and gives you issues and your plate gets all beat up because of it, or even as a brand new one, you know, if your door got damaged and you ended up replacing the door or sectioning the door, you don't want to put an old, raggedy license plate holder back on it, so you can just pick up a new one and add it where you need it. I know what I'd be thinking whenever I put one of these on my enclosed trailer and it would be, you know, how long is it gonna hold up Is it gonna last for a while I don't wanna have to change this thing every time I change my plate.

And honestly, after kind of checking it out, I'd see really no issues getting quite a bit of use out of it. Five, maybe 10 years, something like that, if I had to guess, unless something catastrophic happened, you got rear-ended or something like that. It feels good, it's well built, it's super thick plastic. It has a couple radiuses there and so, you know, when it bends like that that does add strength to the frame. And I mean, even just getting scuffed and everything.

I mean I'm hitting this pretty hard, with a hard screwdriver handle and it's not even leaving a scuff or a nick in it, so, pretty impressive actually. So I really think it could take a beating and hold up to it. One of the purposes of using a plate holder like this is to help keep your trailer in a little bit better shape, 'cause I know I thought, well, why don't you just screw the license plate right to the back of the door The problem with that is a lot of times when you have metal on metal it can cause corrosion issues and, you know, really start to mess your paint up and really kind of start to pit the metal 'cause a lot of times, you know, you'll have an aluminum door, the plate will be made from steel and when you mate them together you get water going on back there, you get a lot of corrosion and it kind of just tears everything up. So by having a holder like this, you know, you're gonna have that thick layer of plastic in between those two pieces of metal, and you're not gonna have to worry about that issue. We'll go ahead and just grab a couple measurements here, that way if you need 'em, you have 'em, if you need to figure out if it'll work with your particular setup.

So the overall length of it, from side to side, is gonna be 14-1/4 of an inch. As far as how wide it is, so from there to there, it's gonna be 8-5/16 of an inch. And the depth, so how thick it is, that's going to be 13/16 of an inch. So at the end of the day, kind of a great, you know, all around, almost universal license plate holder, you know, it's ideal for these enclosed trailers but that doesn't mean that you can't use it for a different type of trailer or maybe even a cargo carrier, you know, for the most part universal, so you can use it however you see fit. Now, as far as getting this installed, really straightforward, there's gonna be a few screws that we need to put in to actually secure the holder and then of course your couple of screws for your license plate.

So, really shouldn't give you a whole lot of issues. Speaking of which, let's go ahead and put it on together now. To get our license plate holder installed it's gonna be super simple and pretty much the same regardless on what type of enclosed trailer that you have. Now, there's gonna be a couple scenarios where you're replacing an existing one, like we are today, whether it be damaged, you know, faded, cracked, whatever the case may be, or you might be adding it. But that said, you know, process is gonna be extremely similar. If you are gonna be replacing one you are going to obviously need to remove it. In our case our screws came right out but it seems like some people struggle with having hardware that's really rusty, or stripped out or something like that, and if that's your case, never a bad idea to soak 'em down, maybe with some penetrating oil, let 'em sit, maybe work overnight, couple hours or something like that. Or what you can do as well, so say for example, if the bit was stripped out, or the inside of the fastener, what you can do, a lot of times these aren't in here super tight, a lot of times what you can do is grab a pair of vice grips and actually clamp the head of that bolt and, you know, work it out that way. So that gives you a nice, good grip on it. So just kind of a pointer, something I wanted to mention, it seems like some people kind of struggle with. With that said, we can take our holder, and in our case, super simple, the pre-drilled holes in it are already gonna line up with the holes in our enclosed trailer. If you're going to be adding this and not replacing it, what you do is find the spot, you know, that you want to put it, hold it in place, and then you'd take a marker, or a pencil and use those pre-drilled holes as templates to mark out where you need to pre-drill and run your fasteners in. If you are gonna be replacing it, be an ideal time just to get new hardware and use that, that way everything's cleaned up. You can find these self-tappers here at etrailer, that's exactly what I'm gonna do. So I'm gonna kinda get that started and then use the bolt to kinda line itself up, that way we know everything will fit in the original position. I kind of hold that in place there. And run that down. I'll just do the same thing for our three remaining attachment points. All that's left to do is just take your license plate and put it on. That's pretty nice actually, they do give you some screws with the holder here, so these will be fresh as well. I'll get both of them started, and just tighten them down. That'll finish up our look at and our installation of the Optronics license plate holder..