Well I decided to remove the stripes today because I am going to go stripe less for a while but now I have some paint fade and can see the stripe lines.

I washed, goo-goned, clay bar'd, waxed and polished the area to no avail. It is much better but I can still see it.

I guess this is a good time to go ahead and re-paint th ehood, there are a lot of dings anyway. Oh and get this-

I had a local sign shop that happens to do all the MINI dealer's stripe install put on my stripes. I found out today that the a-hole who installed them decided to use a knife to trim them on the bonnet so there are nice knife cuts through the clear into the paint at the top and bottom of both locations opf the odl stripes Can you believe it!

I am going by there on Tuesday and showing it to them and see if they are willing to chip in for repainting the hood (if I can't get the fade out). It was done over a year ago but I use them a lot for company business and hopefully they will own up to it.....


Anyway. Any ideas on what I can do?

thanks!

chris

 

Do you have any pictures and what color is your car? I was thinking of replacing mine but I am afraid of how faded the paint maybe under the stripes.

 

I do not have any photos. Not sure that it would show up really (it is a rainy day).

I have a Dark Silver MINI.

If you are going to replace them then don't be afraid since you will cover it unless you are going for something completely different.

Also it depends how long the stripes have been there.

If they have been on for less than a year you probably wont have a problem.

Heck it gives me the opportunity to have the front end repainted as we are going to do some cool crazy stuff here soon...

chris

 

Mine I think have been on for since the car was purchased (2002). So I am sure I would have some serious fade and yes I would go with Viper Stripes.

 

I would be concerned about fade then if I were you.

Maybe Richard (OctaneGuy) can chime in with some magical detailing trick that will work. Or just do a repaint.....

chris

 

I removed the factory V Stripe from Dave's Solar Red Cooper. I think it was on for maybe only 6 months, and there was visible fade. Although the interesting thing was that the covered area was actually lighter than the exposed area. One would think that the visible area would be lighter and the covered would be darker, but it was just the opposite.

Not much could be done to rectify this. I'm always concerned about this issue when having to remove vinyl.

I was concerned for MINIClo's MINI when I removed her bonnet stripes recently, but I was surprised that fade wasn't an issue.

I think the metallics suffer more from "paint fade" than the solid colors.

The best you can do short of a repaint is to polish out the area to remove the swirls---there will be plenty--that will even up the shine and gloss, and make the fade much less noticeable.

Richard

 

The stripes on my MCS are starting to develop some straight brown colored spots. I'm assuming they have been there since new (spec'd out by original owner). Did you have any trouble removing the stripes? I'd love to put some fresh stripes on mine, but I'm afraid of pulling off the paint w/ the old stripes.

 

Super easy! Just take your time and don't get frustrated should it come off in pieces but more than likely it will come off as one piece.

Worse case scenario you will have some residue that you will need to clean off but don't worry as you won't pull any paint off. If you did it would not be the fault of the stripe but an issue with your paint!

chris

 

Do you have to apply any heat or use any chemicals to aid in the removal of the stripes? Or can I just start picking away at one of the corners and pull it off that way?

 

Pick and pull!

 

Thanks! I'm going to order new stripes for my car as soon as I get paid again.

 

It depends on the condition of the vinyl. But as CustomAV said, you likely can just pull it off. You might find using a hairdryer to heat up the stripe to soften the glue will result in a cleaner removal. Just heat up the area and pull the vinyl back. Helps to wear leather gloves so you don't burn yourself.

If the vinyl has begun to deteriorate, then you may find that removal consists of many thin pieces of vinyl.

Good luck.

Richard

 

Richard, I was worried about fade, too, but there is none! My only advice to others: stay away from metallic vinyl graphics! Getting mine removed was so labor-intensive (thank you for all your work, Richard), I will probably keep Wanda stealth...no more graphics. :impatient

 

Yeah we removed her Union jack graphics off the sunroof with razor blades today since nothing else would clean up the super thin adhesive film remaining from the vinyl. I tried Goo Gone, Alcohol and water, plastic scrapers, my lil'Chilzer, and even our fingernails--the old razor blades turned out best.

Nasty awful stuff---don't put vinyl on your sunroof. Yuck.

Richard