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I just bought a used 2011 A8L after hitting a deer with my 2006 A6. Love the car. License plate change over was a nightmare. I've read quite a bit on this and other forums and here is what I've learned while just finishing my change over.

1. The Audi design (front and rear) leaves alot to be desired.

2. Audi installed the old plates with non-stainless screws, after 5 years they were all rusted. The rear spins the nuts and the front do come out easy as they are just sheet metal screws into plastic.

3. On the rear the OEM design used #6 machine screws mating with nuts which have cinch clips into the black plastic interface mount to the trunk.I got new nuts from the dealer. They gave me non-stainless screws again so I got stainless from Ace Hardware. I hated the look of the black plastic which acts also as a border to the plate after install. I drilled out the old rusty screws (much easier than cutting). After that what is left is 2 torx screws holding the interface mount to the trunk. They came out easily. I had learned that there is double stick tape holding the mount to the trunk and would need to be warmed with hairdryer. Well, lo and behold the original Audi installer had forgot to peel off the red tape on the double stick stuff so the mount just came right off. I peeled the red off during re-installing mount.

4. Once the rear mount was off I was able to preserve enough plastic to hold the new cinch nuts in place. I also bought the chrome accessory frame for the front and rear plates ($38 per) with the goal of removing the black frame from the front and rear mounts. With the rear mount off, I scribed the outline of the license plate and then used my oscillator tool to cut the mount to the size of the license plate. I was able to install the new plate with the chrome frame and am happy the way it came out. Maybe a bit too shiny for a 58 yr old man but I think I like it.

5. On the front, Audi uses pan head sheet metal screws to screw into the front black plastic interface mount. The old rusty screws come out very easily but I still wanted to get rid of the black border and go straight chrome. Getting the front mount off was a challenge but I was successful. There are no screws holding the mount (I am not sure why others in the forum talk about them - maybe it is for a non-D4 platform). It turns out there are 5 cinch clips holding the plastic extenders in place behind the mount and into the grill. You can see one of them in my pics when looking into the side. There are also 4 other extenders which use friction points (?) and need to be released to enable slide out. Interstingly, Audi also put in 2 cable ties for an extra secure connection. All this can be seen during a careful inspection of the grill behind the mount. You do not need to remove the grill nor the nose (thankfully). I cut the cable ties and defeated the cinch clips using a long flat screw driver (letting them fall into the bottom of the nose and not worrying where they disappeared to). I did not reinstall the 5 cinch clips as it would be impossible without removing the grill and or nose. When reinstalling I relied on the 4 other friction extenders as well as the others which ensure correct alignment. I put in new cable ties (make sure you fish them thru before pulling out the old ones, I used gorilla tape to attach new to old for successful fishing). Make sure you do this because fresh fishing will be painful if not impossible. I then cut the black frame to the same size as the license plate (like the rears) and put on the new chrome frame. I was abe to fit the mount within the frame for a super flush fit. On the rear I had not thought to do that but I can hardly tell (might change that in the future).

Anyway, enough typing for me, I just finished so I wanted to capture all my thoughts. Hopefully the pics paste up well. If anyone needs some help with the licesnse plate nightmare just reach out.

Tom

Goddog

Thanks man! You replied on my post to check yours, I'm glad I did. The rear license plate nuts on mine were a royal pain in the a$$ the dealer had swapped her original screws out for allen bolts....WHY....made it even more difficult to swap my plate on it. I will be following your steps.

Good post!