Removing Car Emblems
Car emblem removal made simple!

Debadging A Car

The popular practice of removing emblems from your car serves a few basic purposes:

• Your car will be less cluttered with "busy" bright work.
• You will have less bright work to clean and detail around.
• Go into "stealth" mode by removing designating insignias of your particular car model.

The Basics of Car Emblem Removal

Removing the car badges from your car will require minimal tools, products, and skill levels. While there are many ways to go about any task, I have condensed this with my operating philosophy in mind, "Minimal effort; maximum results".

The 4 Steps of Removing Car Emblems

• Remove emblem itself
• Remove double sided tape
• Remove adhesive residue
• Polish area

Remove Car Emblems-step 1

1. Make sure car emblem is attached using double sided tape only. Can verify with dealership or body shop if unsure.
2. Use dental floss or fishing line to "cut" through tape. Do this by sliding up and down between badge and paint.
3. Can use pliers to grab emblem very carefully and pry from car-requires very steady hand so as to not touch paint work.
4. Using hair dryer to heat up double sided tape underneath emblem first, will aid in separation from paint work.

Remove Car Emblems-step 2

After you have removed the actual emblem itself, there will be the double sided tape to remove. This will be the most difficult part of the process. The picture of the car badge removal of the Mercedes at right shows some remaining material of the spongy, double sided tape. Looking closely at the picture you can see the outline of the emblems created by the residual adhesive that will need to be removed in the next step.

1. Use fingers to push and rub spongy, double sided tape away from paint.
2. I have found this is the safest way to remove; also the most painful on the finger tips if removing large amounts.
3. The longer the car emblem has been in place prior to removal, the more difficult it will be in removing car emblems.
4. Adhesive remover will be very little help in this step due to the fact of the double sided tape being so thick. I have found it is best to just spend the time and rub off with finger tips before attempting to apply adhesive remover as this will only make the spongy material more difficult to work with.

Remove Car Emblems-step 3

Once the double sided tape has been removed, it is time to remove the remaining adhesive residue with one of the adhesive removers pictured in the right column. If you have some rubbing alcohol around the house, you can use this also but requires much more rubbing as this is less effective at breaking down the adhesive residue.

• Use adhesive remover with a terry cloth rag to remove residue.
• This step will require much rubbing to completely remove adhesive residue.
• This will be the step that abrades the paint.
• There is no way to do this much rubbing without doing some form of scuffing on your cars paint.
• On light colored cars, this will be less noticeable.
• It is acceptable to use some of the scratch remover pictured at right to polish this area by hand, after you have removed last remaining adhesive.
• For truly superior results, you will need to use a rotary buffer and a wool cutting pad, to polish away any and all of the scratching that will remain in the final step of removing car emblems.
• Since most people are not skilled with these types of buffers, you can still get good results by polishing with your hand.

Remove Car Emblems-step 4

This picture to the right shows me using a rotary polisher to remove the scratching left behind during the adhesive removal. Notice the blue painters tape I have applied to protect the edges that are prone to damage of the buffing wheel. Because most people don't generally own a car buffer along with the correct buffing pads and polishes, they will be required to try and polish this area by hand. Like I said, this will provide most people with acceptable results, but will not deliver true professional results without using the rotary polisher. This type of buffer is necessary to generate enough heat and friction to actually do any true scratch removal. Doing it by hand should be called scratch polishing rather than removal, as you will simply be polishing the scratches that are there. And they will remain, just check tin the "right" light and you will see. But do not let this fact from preventing you from removing car emblems from your own car, as you will be able to get results that are acceptable in most lighting; especially on light colored paint. Yes this means on dark and black paint it will be trickier, but a little extra time and effort will cure that.

The Final Product of Removing Car Emblems

Here we have a shot of the final product of our removing car emblems project. Notice how it has "cleaned" up the back end of this Mercedes Benz? No more extra car emblems and badges to clean and wax around. Also, no longer can you tell if this is a C230 or a C250? (we love our pretenses don't we?)

Now we have a much "cleaner" look to the back end of this Mercedes by removing the C230. As an added note, the Mercedes bulls-eye logo cannot be removed as there are pins that go though the sheet metal for attachment.

Additional Resources for Removing Car Emblems

Use these additional tips and resource links if you have decided to debadge your car yourself:

Removing the Car Emblem Itself

Depending on the exact type of car badge or emblem you are removing, you can simply use a pair of pliers to clamp onto the car emblem (without touching car paint) and pull it away from the car enough to get your fingers underneath and pry off.

Removing the Double Sided Tape

Unfortunately like every other area in life, many topics are filled with much more bad information than useful information. It is commonly accepted that use of a heat gun is required when removing car badges and emblems from your car. While a heat gun is useful when removing decals from your car, it will prove mostly ineffective for use in the car badge removal process. I have found that for the safest results, simply pushing against and rubbing the double sided tape with your fingers is the best method. There are a few additional methods I have come up with for myself, but are not for the beginner and are too difficult to explain in word form; just go with the fingers.

Removing the Adhesive

There will always be some level of remaining adhesive once you have removed virtually all the double sided tape. If the emblems have been in place for many years, there will be an actual wear pattern that has developed around the letters/numbers. It is important to make sure you have complete removal of the adhesive. Double check your work as most people short-cut this step. Like I said earlier, you can use rubbing alcohol if you already have some but will take much longer and abrade the paint more by the additional rubbing.

Polishing the Final Product

There will always be some form of abrading caused by the car emblem removal process and polishing this area by hand with some form of polish will be acceptable for most, but the reality is that unless you know how to truly polish scratches away, there will be remaining scratches. If you attempt to polish by hand you will be doing very little more than polishing the actual scratches, rather than polishing them away. This means you will still see polished scratches in different lighting. If you are looking for true professional results, you will have to use a rotary buffer for complete removal of any scratches left behind. You can refer to this page on Car Polish that will help you in deciding on the best car buffer and polishes to use.

Waxing the Final Product

Yes, you will need to follow with some form of car wax as your very final step. Wax is used for both protection and visual enhancement, so don't forget this important step. You can see my recommendations at Best Car Waxes.

Home >> How to Detail a Car >> Removing Car Emblems

Home | About | About This Site | Privacy Policy | Contact Me