Removing badges on back of cars

[skeet2low8]

I have a 1990 420 SEL and would like to remove the badges from the back and replace with gold ones. Question are they glued on? Are they able to be removed without damaging the paint? What method would be best to remove them. Can a body shop do it any better than myself.
Thanks, Charlie

[mark cummins]

Use dental Floss to remove the piece..

[Saaz]

I don't know about the badges on a '90, but on my '00 and '02, prying them up with dental floss and fingernails worked great. I've had to remove trunk badges, as well as the "V6 kompressor" on the front fenders, so I've had quite a bit of experience with it. :)

It helps if you leave the car out in the sun or heat the badges with a hair-dryer first, to soften the adhesive.

You'll probably have to clean off some residue with tar-remover afterwards.

Given how easy it is, I would do it yourself (carefully), and NOT trust your average body shop to do it. After having some work done, a body shop put the wrong badges on my car, then gouged the paint trying to remove them. After that I just got new badges from them, and finished the job myself.


In my case, the badge is made up of individual characters, which came perfectly aligned on a paper backing. If that's how yours come, put a piece of masking tape across them, peel off the backing, then press the whole letter/masking tape thing onto the trunk. Using the masking tape to temporarily hold the letters together keeps them aligned, and you don't have to mess with lining up all the letters individually.

[skeet2low8]

Dental Floss....cute! I thought about heating with a hair dryer, but not the dental floss. This makes sense; soft and strong...good idea. I will try it.
Charles Grabski
1990 420SEL Black 210,000 miles
1990 420SEL White 52,000 miles...Garage Toy

[Alex]

I used a hair dryer on the CL500 for a minute or so and the letters came off cleanly, leaving nothing on the body. On the C240 some of the gook from the double-sided tape that held the letters remained. 3M General Purpose Adhesive Cleaner took it off easily and quickly with no ill effects.

The first time I did it it was scary because I was afraid to damage the paint. But it's just double-sided tape that holds the badges and on new cars the glue hasn't set all that well.

On my '81 300TD it was a diffferent story Those "300TD" and "Turbodiesel" badges were not installed with double sided tape. They each had a few pins that protruded through the body of the tailgate. This required serious body work that had to be done twice because the first time the holes were not perfectly filled, leaving slight indentations that were visible. I remember the bodywork costing around $250, which in '81 was an extravagant expense for such a design whim. But the cars sure look better without the badges. Of course, the MB logo stays.