Hey guys, here is an easy way to make your car look a lot cleaner.
On the sides of your P4s and P5s (I think MP3s don't have moldings) there is side molding along the doors and a little on your fenders. Unlike most cars, our side moldings are not mounted with screw holes... they just glued them on. Because all of us have relativley new cars, there is an easy way to shave these moldings.
1. You need a sponge, and somethign that will be a little harder to get.. '3m General Purpose Adhesive Cleaner'. ONLY this stuff will work, everything else like 'goo off' or other adhesive removers cannot be used on car paint and if they can, they are too weak to do anything. The 3m adhesive remover I bought at a local ACE hardware, but any hardware store can get it for you. I had to have them order it because ace only sells 'ace' brand adhesive thinners. the 3m I.D. no. is 62-4787-6509-2, or try the UPC code: 51135 08984. This is what it looks like: 3m General Purpose Adhesive Cleaner
2. Pour a little bit of 3m adhesive remove on the top of the side molding along your car that you wish to remove. Give it about half a minute to a whole minute to soak in the adhesive, the waiting makes a whole lot difference. Then slowly pry the molding off with your fingers(your paint wont peel because the adhesive will stay on your car, also your paint is too new.)or what I used was a 'shoe horn'. Anything that is softer than the metal of your car and not sharp (plastic wedge).
3. Now that you have no moldings on your car you will probably have two lines of adhesive for each strips. To get the adhesive off it is somewhat time consuming but comparitivley easy. Just pour some 3m on your sponge, soaking it to the point of dripping. And run the sponge over the adhesive strips, soaking the lines, you may need to soak the adhesive a few times to start off.
4. The most repetative step... peel off the the adhesive in a recently soaked area with your thumbnail - anything else will leave marks in your clearcoat. Now the first time is not going to get it all off, so when the adhesive stops coming off with your thumbnail, soak it again with your sponge, and scrape it some more with your nail. The process is slow, it took me about 15 minutes for just one door, but the end is great.
5. If you happen to be one of the rare people that is able to see some difference in the color of the paint under your car's sidemoldings now that they are shaved (you bright color cars) just wax the area and it will BE seamless.
A picture of finished car...
and yes believe it or not, I wasted tons of money on the wingswest bumper to get rid of the ugly orange sidemarker on it (that and to have bigger foglights than my friend's subaru!)
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by BeefSupreme22
Bookmarks