Best way to get the staining of the adhesive off the paint so you don't have "ghost lettering" is to wet-sand. If your not comfortable with this take it to a detail shop/body shop.

If you want to attempt it, This is what I do:

-Wet sand the area with 1500
-wet sand the area with 2000
-chamois surface
-apply a fine cut polishing compound
-polish area at approx 1000-1200rpm
-Microfiber afterwards removing excess compound

-Mike

Damn! thanks. Any other ideas to remove ghost letters ?

Just get some polish or some car wax and rub on the ghost lettering. That should be able to clear it.

I did this on my Focus after the car was a couple years old. After a month or two or normal washing/use- it evened out. I waxed over it right after I took off the badges- then after that- just washed it- business as usual. I had heard about the wet sanding idea- but I didn't feel comfortable sanding the paint on my car.

looks awesome

wetsanding is totally unnecessary, go to the store and go find some goo gone or goof off, put some on a cloth and rub on the spots where visible, after put a light coat of wax and ur done, ive done this to many of cars and its really easy, dont do more work than necessary!

+1 ya this is an easy job, don't over do the work, u can just get some maguires scratch removal and put some of that on a cloth and apply it to the car followed with Maguires car wax and that should take care of the discoloration. if u still see the spot re-do the same process and it should take care of it. i too the badges of my car from the side panel's and i had to do this 3 time for it to be completely clear.

MHPHOCKEY -Thanks man,

Yeah it worked completely! I went and grabbed goo gone and some turtle wax and it evened right out. I was not about to put sand paper to my car, and then be in even deeper ish. But yeah it worked fine, the tan lines are gone.

Told you it is no problem to do it yourself! When I first got my car, I was really scared to mess with it, cuz I didn't want to break anything (breaking parts on a Benz is just $$$$ compared to my mx6 before).

Once I started doing the little things, I got over the fear of breaking stuff (of course, getting a promotion at that time didn't hurt either ).

Glad to see you were able to do it! Looks good.

Yeah it went really smooth. And after the wax and what not it looked even better. But yeah once you get over the "break something" feeling, your good. Thanks for the advice.

The great part is that there are so many people on this message board for the w203's (even prior to my being a member) that have basically laid the intial path to taking the car apart that old threads have such a wealth of knowledge for stuff like this.

That's why I had helped amdeutsch put together the links for the AFTERMARKET / OEM MODIFICATIONS / DIY thread (prior to being a moderator). And I've added many more since. I haven't had a chance to sift through more links (to old threads) that we can put up, but if any of you search for information and find an old DIY that is not included, please let me know. Or if there is something that you feel would be useful to people and is not included in that sticky thread, let me know about that as well.

looks nice and clean!

Outaurleague, you're certainly living up to your motto "always improving".
Your car looks great!

Drex, you're such a baller to be breaking things without to much worry. With that promotion, you've got too much disposable income around you. j/k.

I will 2nd that one... I need to sell my ML so i can have some extra laying around also.

LOL...arnold, big thing is not having the ball and chain (aka...wifey) or the mouths to feed! I figure, I might as well enjoy before I have bigger responsibilities down the line.

Although, at some point, I'll grow tired of all of it and go for practicality ( )...

I bought dental floss, but couldnt find any goo-gone, so i settled for "BUG & TAR REMOVER (SAFE ON CLEAR COAT FINISHES)" anyone know if this will work just as good?

I couldn't tell ya but I don't think that's the same thing. Goof-Off is made to dissolve adhesives, Bug & Tar remover is not.

So you gonna do yours?? I saw a nice (it looked like a c350, i'm still not too good at distinguishing different c's) debadged today, and it gave me an itch to do it, but I still might wait till I get some S-class tails..

I did it on my previous car, a blazer...hair dryer worked perfect with no other stuff needed, just a little wipe down with a damp cloth...of course I would put a little more care into doing it now...

Here is mine after removing the ghost letters.

yeah, i got my s-class led tails yesterday, so i would really like to debadge now since the rear end will look so much more clean

well tar is kind of like an adhesive..i dont know, i went to walmart and autozone and couldnt find this goof-off stuff anywhere, so i settled for this

an auto place usually wont have it. I got mine from Low's hardware store.

1. Hair dryer
2. Can of Goof Off
3. Microfiber towel
4. Dental Floss (flavor doesn't matter)
5. Wife at the mall shopping (don't need to be disturbed!)
6. 6 pack or even 12 pack of Fat Tire brew...
7. Patience

Heat up letters with hairdryer, remove with any flavor floss. Clean up with goof-off. Drink nice swig of beer. R epeat as necessary until all letters (or emblems) are removed. If you run out of beer before emblems make emergency run to the liquor store...Piece of Cake!!! Trust me...

when wife is back she will say, "Honey, i use up all the Credit Limit on this card, now you can do debading with it."

I FINALLY DEBADGED TONIGHT! That crappy bug and tar remover didn't help at all, waste of money that was. I used a hairdryer to heat it up and floss to remove the letters. The letters come off so easily, but the leftover adhesive took over an hour to fully get off...pretty pathetic, eh? I'll get some pics to you guys soon after I wash my car.