mikemike - - - The plug covers and screws were no problem at all, but I cannot figure out how to release the electrical connector. It feels to me as though there is some kind of latch, but I sure can’t find it.

Any suggestions?

 

HELP!

I just ran out and bought denatured alcohol and used a paper towel to remove the driver's side sticker.

Unfortunately, the yellow band on the top of the sticker and the red circle on the left left yellow and red marks on my sun visor.

Furthermore, the whole sticker area is a bit discolored.

I tried rubbing it with Simple Green and a microfiber towel, but it didn't seem to help. I'm going to try Goo Gone next.

Any suggestions on how to get the visor completely clean???

 

i used a product called goof off. available at all hardware stores.

it took about a min to do each one.

no residue, no dis-coloration.

just apply a small anount to a rag, and rub it in. let it soak in for 20 seconds and viola!!!

 

>>
>>mikemike - - - The plug covers and screws were no problem at all, but I cannot figure out how to release the electrical connector. It feels to me as though there is some kind of latch, but I sure can’t find it.
>>
>>Any suggestions?
>>
>>
There is a connector release, glently squeeze it ,wiggle the connector side to side while pulling the 2 halves apart

blott or soak decals with alchol then roll or tear off. Rub and yes ,ink smears onto visor.

Glad to hear goof off / goop off, whatever it is called is safe to use.,because there will be glue residue after taking off decals, which alchol does a poor job of removing without lots of rubbing.

Thanks everyone for making this site so helpful

mikemike

 

Well, I seem to have removed the ink stains. I was happy enough that I did the other visor. Both visors are discolored in the sticker area.

Don't know if that's better or worse than the stickers. It doesn't bother me too much. Time heals all wounds.

Not that I'd do it, but can I take the visor to a body shop and have them repaint the entire visor?

 

has anyone actually replaced teh whole visor. with bigger ones? I wish someon would make them larger.. I know i'm picky, but it seems the mini visor were meant to actually block no sun on my morning commute... I love to see soem extendable ones made

 

>>has anyone actually replaced teh whole visor. with bigger ones? I wish someon would make them larger.. I know i'm picky, but it seems the mini visor were meant to actually block no sun on my morning commute... I love to see soem extendable ones made
Visor extender

There must be other out there also.


Paul

 

There have been several very long threads on some of the BMW forums about sunvisor sticker removal, and I’m assuming that the MINI stickers are similar to the Bimmer stickers.

It appears that BMW has used two or more types of stickers, even on the same model and year. Some will peel off (with the correct solvent), and others semi-dissolve and break into small pieces. Some will come off with alcohol and other require a stronger solvent such as Goof Off. Some come off cleanly and others leave a “shadow” of different reflectivity on the vinyl.

On my Z3’s sunvisors I had to use Goof Off. It was fairly easy to use, but it left the vinyl looking as though it was ruined - - it had humongous stretches and sags! But, after 24 hours the vinyl tightened up and returned to normal.

mikemike - - - thank you! I removed some of the electrical tape, saw the clip, pressed (following your instructions), and now both visors are awaiting some alcohol.

 

My stickerless visors are back on my MINI. For those of you that haven’t removed your stickers yet, there are a couple of things that I learned.

I used 70% isopropyl alcohol - saturated it and painted the sticker with alcohol. After a little over a minute the sticker softened enough to be able to start picking it off with my fingernail. This was a mistake - don’t do it. After about five minutes (adding alcohol as needed to keep it wet) I was able to lift a corner with my fingernail and carefully peel the sticker off of the vinyl leaving no residue. After peeling all that I did was wipe off the alcohol and wipe down with 303 Aerospace Protectant. No sign that a sticker had ever been there.

The problem with early picking at the sticker:
The sticker broke into a lot of very small pieces. If I’d promptly wiped them off, then there wouldn’t have been a problem - but a let a few specks remain. The alcohol further softened them and when I tried to wipe them off they only made black smears on the vinyl. They resisted scrubbing with a cotton ball and alcohol. Goo Gone removed about half of the smearing. It took Goof Off to remove the remaining smeared melted sticker. Waiting and then peeling is by far the best way to go.

Just like with the BMW stickers, possibly not all MINI stickers are created equal. YMMV!

 

Huzzah!

> On my Z3’s sunvisors I had to use Goof Off.

That did it!! Thank you Nick T!!!

I went back to the store where I got my denatured alcohol and found the Goof Off. There were three kinds:

1) a little rectangular can
2) wipes
3) Professional Strength in a big round can

Naturally, I got the Professional Strength. :smile: ), and keeping my finger directly underneath the ridged towel as the primary source of pressure finished wiping off the discoloration.

There is some sagging in the visors, but it's not bad. As with Nick's Z3, I'm hoping it'll firm up after a night of cool Montana air.

Woohoo!

 

I know a little of chemistry (and more importantly, I have a friend who knows a LOT about chemistry), and it's a truism that anything can be dissolved easily if you use the right solvent (stainless steel dissolves very quickly in nitrous acid!). I knew I found the right solvent when each swipe of a paper towel made a difference. Acetone is the key, my friends. It evaporates quickly and the paper towel absorbs the die/paint very quickly, so the trick is to put a little bit on the paper towel, wipe quickly and vigorously. After 10-15 seconds, most of the acetone evaporates or has mixed with die (and so can't absorb more), so cleaning pretty much stops. Just switch to a new (clean) part of the paper towel, put a little more acetone on, and repeat. Ten minutes, a half-ounce of acetone, and a half-dozen paper towels later, my visors were pristine. The yellow took the longest to remove and streaked like hell while I was working on it, but it did come off. Needless to say, make sure you do this in a place with good ventilation.

-Cor.

 

I would advise AGAINST using acetone! The only difficulty that I had was when I allowed a few small pieces of the sticker to dissolve and smear. It was much easier to just wait until the alcohol had loosened the adhesive and then peel off the sticker with no cleanup remaining.

 

I actually just did this last week, and posted a nice little how-to on my site. 91% isopropyl alcohol, some cotton *****, and about a half hour worth of elbow grease took the stickers right off. There is a little bit of ghosting left over from where the stickers were, but that will fade in time.

When doing this you want the highest concentration of isopropyl alcohol possible. 91% was the highest I found at Walgreens, but I know 99% exists out there somewhere. And you want to make sure that you blot the alcohol, not rub. Rubbing will smear the "paint" on the stickers all over the visors...not good.

 

I followed the procedure outlined by sdiver on my 2005 MC and it worked great. I also used 91% since that's all I found. Think it took me about 20-25 minutes of soaking and working the edges in. My stickers did not even begin to bleed, so I'm not sure if they changed them on the 05s. I was still careful, but it came off super easy. No left over marks or shadows at all.

I highly recommend unrolling the cotton *****, soaking them, and then laying them on the visor for about 5 minutes. That speeds things up tremendously.

 

Thanks for the followup, I was waiting for someone to do this

 

denatuted alcohol is 95% and generally ethanol it is also the main ingredient in rain-x. Keep it away form anything painted (ie dash, outside of car, etc...) I haven't tried it but I imagine both alcohol and acetone would work but in different ways. So here I speek not from experiance but from my chem degree.....

acetone will remove the paint, disolve it, and it will remain on the cotton ball or paper towle as it is so volitile that it will evap very quickly. It may leave some sticker residue but it would be clear.

Alcohol will act on the adhesive and you could remove the sticker once it had a few miniutes to disolve, more soften the adhesive. patients is required here.

A combination could be used. acetone to remove the paint then etoh to remove the adhesive but your better off using goop off for the remaing adhesive.

Just remember, if you are swithching solvents be sure to wash remain solvent of with water before aplying the different solvent. you could cause a really messy chemical reaction.

I will be doing this in a few weeks, can't wait. I want to see the replacement sickers. Are they funny?

 

I would like to take those ugly stickers off too. After reading all these posts I thought "I have that stuff", but after looking around the house I have Goo Gone - not Goof Off, I have 50% and 71% isopropyl alcohol - not 91% and I have some oops (all purpose remover). I was unable to find denatured alcohol at the store today and when I asked ppl looked at me as if I'd grown a 2nd head. Will any of these products that I have on hand work?

 

I used regular old rubbing alcohol to take mine off of my MC. I think denatured alcohol is an ingredient used to make methamphetamine, so some places will be watchful of someone trying to buy it.

 

I recently tried to remove my stickers. I screwed up on the driver's side and will soon be purchasing a replacement visor.

Be careful about what slvents you use. The woman in the dealership who gave me the rundown on the controls of the car mentioned that other customers had used acetone with some success. I recommend against it. I have not tried acetone per se, but rather methyl ethyl ketone, and it swells the plastic so much that even cotton swabs can damaged the surface.

Isopropyl alcohol worked very well at swelling the sticker and softening the adhesive. After removing the IPA-soaked sticker, some residue remained around the edges, so I used a few drops of goo-gone on my IPA-saoked rag and the adhesive residue cleaned off easily and with no damage. I don't recommend scrubbing with anything harsher than an old cotton tshirt or cotton swabs or applicator pads (like fine gauze). Even terry cloth or microfiber may be harsh enough to damage the surface.

I used a razor blade to start the corner of the sticker. I do not recommend using one for anything more than getting under the sticker to continue pulling by hand. I also do not recommend it unless you have a very steady hand and excellent hand-eye coordination. I put a gash in my driver side visor trying to peel up the sticker with a blade. I also noticed that the plastic cover material is very easily damaged by a blade, but with the adhesive softened, there is a much lower chance of damage occurring.

Anyway, IPA-soaked rag, CAREFUL lifting of the corner with a blade or fingernail, dampening the adhesive with the IPA rag, then cleaning the residue with a little goo gone in IPA is what worked for me.

Also, on the visor that I wrecekd with a blade and MEK, I scrubbed the whole surface over with MEK and ended up with a more glossy-looking panel, which except for the gash actually looked pretty good. And a nylon brush is harsh enough to discolor the anthracite sun visor.

oh, and the IPA I used was a regular old bottle of 91% rubbing alcohol from a pharmacy.

 

Is it complete madness to try to remove the stickers while the visors are still attached? Even if I lay towels down to cover anything that might get dripped on?

 

When we got my first MINI, I sat in the car with my hubby and kept flipping the visor up and down, up and down, up and down....finally, he asks, "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?!" Of course I just stared at him and answered...."but honey, how do they get the airbags up there?" So, okay, after being married for thirty years, I still "get" him....as soon as we got the new MINI home, he took ALL the stickers off the inside. Mick

 

Yes! It is complete madness.

 

Are we sure those ugly things on the visors are stickers? I have an '06 MSCS. Mine look like they have been stamped on. And the little white air bag thing on the dash. Is that a sticker? One of the guys at the dealership said he thought it was embossed on.

 

Don't they sell denatured alcohol at Home Depot & Lowes in the paint section? I swear I've seen it there.

 

I note that many folks have tried Goo Gone. How about "Undu"? It's an all purpose adhesive remover that I have used with good success.