Clear bra/PPF wrap and letter and badges replacement
 

Posted this on sedan W213 section but this is a better place.


i got a quote to wrap the coming E63S in Xpel Stealth but the detailing guy strongly suggested replacing the badges and other letters and symbols. he could do a cut-out but he says the result is never as good as simply wrapping and replacing that stuff. what bugs me more is that he says it is better to buy new ones than to place a new glue/double side adhesive on the previous symbols/letters/badges because they will stick higher than the originals and will lead to dirt accumulation. he is not a newbie and has 15 years of this stuff and worked on more than 3 thousands cars (no sh*t) but I can't believe there is no solution to place a tiny double adhesive with the same strength and thickness as used by MB. yeah, the cost is not that great considering the car price and wrap price but still it goes to €300 EUR essentially for a stuff that's not even aluminum and is replacing brand new stuff. it is simply ridiculous... anyone with experience on this and how have you dealt with it?

OK, some more news from my detailer guy. It seems that at least the MB star on the rear is fixed on 3 points and many times it breaks when taking off. I suggested using a brand new star but I would prepare for re-use the other badges because I don't see how using a strong adhesive from 3M will not secure the badges and only the original one will. He says that somehow the original adhesives give 0 problems and they had several cases where the re-used badges have come off either by taking heat days in summer or some other reason. But then he dropped what seems a lame excuse: that I am placing the re-used badges on top of a PPF that has one feature to avoid dirt getting stick and not over the paint. But if that is so why the MB OEM badges will stick over the PPF??

Another finding is that they are going to cover the PPF with a ceramic coat BUT from their own brand. I questioned how is so and why they don't use one of the top brands dedicated to that and he says they have used all major brands and opt to do one themselves in the last 9 years...

Looks weird but these guys are one of the best in my country and were the first to offer these services 15 years ago, and they deal with Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, Mercedes, Audi, Pagani, McLaren,...

There is no reason the original badges can not be re-used. The only issue is in order to do it properly, the old double sided tape needs to be removed and this is time consuming because each letter is individual. 3M make very high quality low profile double sided tape that is designed for automotive use and is as good as the original tape. I suspect they want you to buy new badges because it's much faster for them, not better. Just my opinion. BTW, the rear star is not hard to remove. It just takes a little care with a credit card or other thin plastic to gently pry off.

That's silly, you don't need new badges, just new double sided tape. I don't know if you have the carbon trim but that's were they need to be careful. The trim on the fenders is held on with pegs that break and the carbon ones are $800 a piece. But if they're slow and careful removing the emblems and trim without damaging them isn't hard.

I have had several cars wrapped and the installers have never required new badges. Certainly do not have them cut around the badges, however. I think they may be a little lazy in that cutting out the two-sided tape in a piecemeal fashion is very time consuming, as I have done it myself on a few occasions. Especially compared to just pulling off the protective cover of a new badge! :)

I can see their point of potential dirt accumulation since there are small gaps between the cuts of two-sided tape, but I have not seen that being a problem myself. Certainly, if you are wrapping a Mclaren, but not for our little cars!!! :)

What I have found well to remove the badges is nylon fishing line, and then use it like dental floss.

Thanks guys!

Yes, I think the reason is that it is time consuming for them and it is cheaper and better to just buy new ones. They told me that in the begging but then started making all these additional excuses. I prefer to this part of the job myself. I simply do not like to throw money out of the window. Trashing perfectly new badges and spending more than 300 EUR on some ****ty new plastic pieces is just insane. Of course if something goes wrong then they will not be responsible for it.

I've discovered 3M press-in-place adhesive but I'm not convinced since from seeing some using it it tends to over spill at the edges and it can lead to a messy job.

Any suggestions on some good adhesive material to use for this case?

Yeah, that's the standard method of removing the badges. I was referring to removing the leftover tape from the back of each letter and then putting new tape on each letter. Not all shops do a good job with the new tape either (as CALBenzo mentioned). Some just cut little strips which don't cover the entire back of the letters because it's easier than cutting out the original letter pattern for proper adhesion.

This works great:
https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-...1804889&rt=rud

Looks great! Thanks

Do you know if it works well over a PPF?

Yes, sticks great to PPF, with or without ceramic coat too. I used it on my car and I have full PPF with ceramic coat and it is holding as well as the OEM tape. The key to not seeing black residue around the emblems is to cut the tape just a tad smaller than the letters/numbers. There's no way to avoid the adhesive (factory or not) to collect a little dirt at the edges. By cutting the tape slightly smaller than the letter/numbers, you won't see any of it. This is what the factory does.

It's probably obvious but, make sure to clean the PPF and/or ceramic coated surface with Isopropyl alcohol before applying the emblems and you'll be good.

With the stealth wrap, ceramic coat and badge substitution they ask around €7k EUR. plus taxes.
big bill but hope the result will be accordingly.

they will not cut the wrap. they do it all by plotter and minimize stretching the wrap and tug it/bending inside panel pieces.

found some good 3M references:

http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1...hment-tape.pdf
http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1...n-promoter.pdf

I’m sure mine are fake but I don’t real care because it look great !!!
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...fc1c3ec9c.jpeg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...0f2c9d558.jpeg

those are very big fins on the rear diffuser.

My solution was to remove all of the lettering - everything except the front and rear stars - as soon as I got the car into my garage after picking it up from the dealer. I used the dental floss technique as described by CALBenzo. :)

Your guy is right. Although you can put adhesive back on the badges, it is never the same and the chances of one falling off is significantly more. Not to mention the spacing of the letters will not be as perfect either is you are a perfectionist. I would buy new if it was my car.