What're your thoughts on...vanity plates?

I thought I'd ask for y'alls thoughts on vanity plates.

I have them on my truck, and my wife has hers on her car.

We've had these tags for *YEARS*. Going back to 1999, there was an online game called EverQuest. My wife and I played hardcore for about 5 years. We have plates with our 'main' character names.

Then, we played World of Warcraft for years. Same thing.

I've played MMO's ever since, and there's one of me in each of them, with this name. Its the same name I post with here, and yes, I've had many people (more than you'd believe) see the plate and go, "Hey, do you play on <servername> in <onlinegame>?"

What I don't like: holy crap are they expensive. In Florida, its $90 a year. Plus the up-front cost, which was IIRC $200. I'm a bit of a NASA geek, and my uncle worked there, so I had to have the shuttle plates. You can see from the damage to my plate where it was on the back of my last vehicle when I got rear-ended on I95 in 2009. I was stopped....he was going over 60. BATTLE SCARS!

So, what's your opinion?

Are we individualistic? Proud? Or pretentious douchenozzles?

Pic, of my baby Vera, fresh out of the bath with said personalized plate:

 

I say it's you money, feel free to buy what you like. It can be a nice personal touch... but depending on what you have chosen it can be taken by people differently. But a nickname... nothing pretentious there.

Frank

 

I think their cool

 

Vanity plates are great! I'll be rocking my USN plates for the rest of my life!

 

Most of the ones in oregon, besides the straight up personalized plates, are cool because a portion of the money goes to whatever organization the plate is for. But I like my Disabled Veteran plates...permanent registration, no more renewals for me

 

Yup! Oregon military plates are only $2 more and look nice!

 

I was gonna make some smart ass comment, til I saw this. Now I just have to say, I would pay to have that one.

 

I'm too cheap for one... I thought about getting my dogs name one time though

 

Me too!

 

Long-assed story incoming!

...

Its a Toyota blue.

But, its a blue normally only available on some odd variant of FJ crusier.

I had a service van (either AT&T or Comcast contractor) go up the passenger side of her with the nose-mounted vice on the front. Buckled in the side of the bed, the cab, and the door in a 5 foot gash.

Long story short, they ended up pulling the bed off the truck and having to repaint 3/4s of it. Only the hood and drivers' door went untouched. So, while we were talking about it, I asked the guy (Maaco shop) what it would cost to paint the rest of the truck as well...thinking, hey, new paint, fresh clear coat, etc.

It was then he quoted me just the cost of the paint and asked what color I wanted. He hands me two books, one with Toyota colors, one big think bastard with everything else. So I went though the things with the wife, found the original super white, and then found the Packers green and was gonna go with that, but on a whim went through the Toyota book and this color just jumped out at me.

Its only, like, the FJ, with the V6, +manual, + four-by, +TRD package, +towing package, and +something else trim package. Rediculously rare...maybe a thousand or so trucks came off the lot this color...total. Ever. But its absolutely stunning to look at and I fell in love with it.

After factoring in what the insurance was covering for the repair work, it cost me about $270ish bucks for the paint, and I think $400 for the labor and clear. So, going from the super white to this was less than $700.


Long-assed story over!