I decided to finally debadge the car today. I was a little intimidated with everyone always messing it up and having bad experiences. I do have to say that it was extremely easy to do the actual debadge; the only hard part was getting the excess adhesive off and the shadow that was left because the car is nearly 4 years old now. I just bought the car a couple months ago and the badges were just not pleasing and made the rear look to cluttered.
Took me about 3-5 minutes to get the left and right side badges off. Took about 5 minutes to get most of the thick adhesive off. Then I spent about 10-15 minutes scrubbing the last bits of adhesive with Goo Gone Automotive and a microfiber towel, which was a pain. It did get most off, but it took a lot of work into scrubbing it off. I finally switched to a magic eraser with just water and it works so much nicer and got all the remaining adhesive off.
Now there was a still a shadow and heres how I completely removed it. First I did a good thorough wash to make sure everything was clean and to remove all of the chemicals from removing the adhesive. I then did 3 rounds of Polishing Compound and that removed the shadow and outline completely. To finish it off I used a paste wax and while I was at it, I did the whole trunk and rear bumper but that part isn't essential, I just did everything while I had the wax out. The polish and wax did a good job and removed any little scratches that were made while removing the adhesive. If you accidentally make any bigger scratches, I would recommend using a more abrasive compound before using the polishing compound and wax.
Tools Used:
- Cheap crappy heat gun
- 25LB Cheap Fishing Line
Products Used:
I'm so much happier without the badges. It looks way cleaner now. If you are going to be a troll or bash debadging because, it was a 3 Series, don't waste your time because I don't care what you think. Im very proud of my car and love it.