Window decal blues follow-up

[DeWitt Harrison]

I am sorry to report I never found a magic bullet for this situation. I was
too chicken about cracking the window or melting interior trim to apply
enough heat to be useful and no solvent, no matter how aggressive,
was able to simply lay waste to the age hardened plastic of the decal.

My solution was to revert to a modified version of the razor blade
method. Since a standard, single-edged razor blade was much too
wide to operate between the defogger stripes, I found an Exacto blade
with a straight chisel shape that was about 1/2" wide. I had to remove
a rear package shelf speaker to gain enough room to wield the knife,
but with a couple hours of alternating between _very_ careful scraping
and vigorous wiping with a cleaning solvent (a Prep-Sol equivalent),
the deed was done. When I was able to reduce the plastic film to
small enough pieces or areas, the solvent was able to find some
adhesive to attack. The beauty of the Exacto knife (chisel) tool is
that the handle allows far more control than is possible with a handheld
razor blade or similar. I was able to scrape within a half millimeter or
even less of the defogger stripes. Of course the first window fogging
day will tell whether or not I done good. If my daughter ever puts another
decal over the defogger stripes, she's a dead girl. What a friggin' pain!

One thing that really stands out is how well those defogger stripes are
adhered to the window. They appear to have withstood a hell of a
lot of rubbing with really nasty stuff.

Thanks again to the q-listers who offered help.

DeWitt Harrison
'88 5kcstq

----- Original Message -----
From: "DeWitt Harrison" <six-rs at comcast.net>
To: "Quattro List" <quattro at audifans.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2003 7:59 PM
Subject: The Colorado Police Protective Assoc. window decal blues


> Audi content: This could happen to an Audi too!
>
> Man am I frustrated.  I'm trying to remove a very suborn window decal
> from the rear window of my daughter's Acura. [ ... ]
>
> The bummer is that this sturdy decal is firmly plastered across several
defogger
> stripes, negating the razor blade option. It's also been cured in the Colorado
> sun for about three years now. It's almost like a 20 mil layer of epoxy at
this
> point. So far I've tried water based stuff like Simple Green, citrus oil
> cleaning stuff and an array of glue solvents such as Goof-Off and contact
> cement remover. I experimented a bit with heat. Heat seemed to soften
> the decal plastic somewhat but it takes a lot of heat and the damn thing is
> in a hard-to-reach place making scraping the softened stuff problematic
> and damage to window and/or interior trim an issue. Additionally, I'm
> concerned that the defogger stripes may come off almost as readily as
> the damned decal. Ideas? Thanks much.
>
> Friends don't let friends put window decals in their cars.
>
> DeWitt Harrison
> '88 5kcstq
>