Cleaning your new 3D or 4D number plates

Clean your number plates when you clean the car: by hand, with car shampoo and a soft wash mitt, then dried off. Raised characters need a little more care than a flat printed plate, and the method is different for 3D gel and for the laser-cut 4D styles. This guide covers both, along with what to keep away from your plates and how to use a pressure washer without regretting it.

Which method you use depends on how the characters are made rather than on what the plate cost. Gel characters are domed in resin and wash like any other glossy surface. Laser-cut characters have square edges and corners that hold dirt, and the layered styles have more edges again. Our guide to 4D number plate styles shows how each one is built.

How to clean your 3D gel number plates

With 3D gel resin number plates, you are best to treat them like a normal set of flat plates. Clean them as normal with your sponge or wash mitt. If you are looking for that extra deep glossy shine, just like when they arrived, we recommend Mr Sheen.

That is right, the common household polish. We get great results polishing 3D gel plates with it and they come up beautifully. If you want to take things further with the usual car cleaning and detailing products, we would recommend Autoglym Super Resin Polish topped off with Autoglym HD Wax. Autoglym also make a quick spray shine for paintwork that works just as well on plates: keep an eye out for Autoglym Instant Show Shine.

How to clean your 4D and 4D gel number plates

Cleaning 4D laser cut acrylic plates is a different job from cleaning gel. The best finish comes from agitating an all-purpose cleaner or some snow foam into the letters with a detailing brush, which lifts the dirt out of the corners where the character meets the plate. Rinse lightly with a hose or a pressure washer at a distance, then pat the plates dry with a plush microfibre towel. A compressed air line or a blower does the same job without touching the characters at all.

Our 4D and 4D gel plates will take polish and wax, but we do not advise it: excess polish collects around the base of every character and is very difficult to get back out. Once the plate is dry, spraying glass cleaner or Mr Sheen onto a cloth and wiping the plates down gently is the quickest way to finish them.

Can I jet wash my number plates?

If your plates came from us, yes. Ours are made from premium materials and stand up to a pressure washer. If you bought them somewhere else we cannot say the same, so use a lower setting or keep the lance back from the plate.

The one thing worth avoiding on any raised plate is holding the lance close and square to the edge of a character. Keep it back, keep it moving, and take the angle off it. On 4D with gel, keep the pressure washer well back from the domes.

Cleaning Outline, Hover, Shadow and Retro plates

The layered styles are cleaned like any other 4D plate: an all-purpose cleaner and a microfibre, with a pressure washer on low and from a distance. Outline is the one to slow down on, because the raised border around each character gives dirt another edge to sit behind, so keep the pressure gentle around the outline and let the brush do the work. If you are not sure which style you have, how 3D gel and 4D plates differ describes how each one is built.

What to keep away from your plates

Gel characters are flexible and take knocks well, but they can be scratched or gouged, so keep solvents and abrasive polish off them. Laser-cut 4D characters are more brittle: do not bend them, and do not drill through the characters on either style. Our plates carry a 36-month warranty against manufacturing defects, which does not cover damage from fitting, impact or chemicals.

Why a clean plate matters

A number plate has to be readable, and dirt is the easiest thing on that list to fix. Plates fail for the things that have always failed them: wrong spacing, wrong font, damage, dirt, or a plate that has faded or cracked. Character depth is not what stops a camera reading a plate. Our guide to 3D and 4D number plate legality goes through the standard in full.

Cleaning a brand new pair

New plates arrive clean, so the only cleaning a new pair needs is to the car rather than the plate: the surface behind the plate wants to be free of wax and polish before anything is stuck to it, which our fitting guide covers.