Ok, I removed all my stripes today as well as the Cooper S
emblem on the boot. Stripes, no problem.
Cooper S emblem, I got all the glue off and rubbed it out but since my car is an 07 there is a little fading to the paint. I've got a slight, (very) slight
shadow of where the Cooper emblem was.
Any ideas on how to blend this in a little better.
I tried some turtle wax rubbing compound for light scratches and it
worked a little but not enough.

How about a light wet sanding with like 2000 grit???? Followed by a
little more compound???

Thanks in advance.

 

hmm seems like i saw something about this.. i just cant remember where... ill try to find it!

 

Don't do either of these as they will not help.
Both of the options will modify the clear but will not touch the paint that has faded/changed to a different color.
Best option is to just leave it for a little while and see if it fades/blends with the paint.
I took the badge off my car and could see the Cooper S highlight for months, but no one else noticed it. After a few months I could not notice it and after a few more months even with close inspection the ghost is gone.
Just give it some time.

 

I agree with thulchatt's comments. My friends had similiar situations in the past. Just leave it...

 

Thanks for the responses. I guess I'll leave it, it's not
that bad and if I don't point it out nobody will probably
notice it anyway. I'm a lot hesitant about sanding the
finish.

 

you could try applying zymol color correcting wax or Prima Amigo which might diffuse the light differently over the old emblem and make it a little less noticeable and then over time it will fade with the rest of the car.

 

Thanks for the info. I've decided to wait it out abit and maybe next
year have my hood (which someone scraped the orig. stripes off and
left some gouges, but they at least touched up the paint fair), and the
lower front bumper. So, might just have the boot done also. I have a
guy up the street that does custom work and he's really good and I
trust him.

 

you need a good clay, polish and paint cleanser. This will help tremendously

it wont be perfect but it will blend in and only under the "perfect lighting conditions" will you see the difference. In everyday sun light you will never even know. gouges are a different story, how bad are the they? down to primer?

 

I'll try clay barring the emblem area but the bonnet scratches are
here to stay until I have them filled, painted, and blended. Not down
to primer or metal but it actually looks like they used some paint chip
paint. They matched color well but you just can't hide the scratches.
Thanks

 

There are two reasons the paint can look different when removing stripes. This is most apparent on metallics.

Either the paint is scuffed, swirled, or scratched around the decals and the underneath is still "factory perfect" so there is an apparent difference or ghost, or the base coat has been physically altered due to UV exposure.

Here is an example of a Cooper that had the factory bonnet stripes removed after one month from the factory. You can see the swirls in the clear coat. These can be fixed through polishing. Wetsanding is NOT needed to improve these swirls.





After the polishing it looked great


But a light ghost image still existed. This diminished after about a year to the point it didn't bother the customer. This was below the clearcoat and no amount of clearcoat removal could fix it.

Don't make a small problem huge by wetsanding especially if you are not already proficient with sanding and removing sanding marks. I've seen it all too often where owners and even body shops hacked up paint due to improper sanding.

Richard

 

OctaneGuy - thanks for your input. I opted NOT to wet sand because of
the reasons you stated. My stripe removing is no problem. They buffed out and you can't tell they were there except for the scratched part on
the bonnet. That was probably done when the orig. stripes were removed, not by me.
The ghost issue is where the Cooper S emblem was (I removed it). It's
not so bad it bothers me that much. I don't want to screw up the clear
coat so I'm just going to claybar it a little and let nature take it place.