De-Badging?

[DanishPastry]

I've had my last couple of cars stripped of model identifiers and really love the clean look it gives the rear end.

It's a daunting DIY job with risk of damaging the paintwork.

Anyone done it? Had the dealership do it?

[eugen61]

Ideally, this should be done on a brand new car until the paintwork did not make contact with sun and dust. My dealership did it, it’s a simple and easy procedure. Since your MY2020 red car has been out in the sun and dust for some time, you might find a slightly different color shade under the badges leaving you with a “burn-in” mark on the boot door.

[Andyfr]

I have done it on other marques in the past using dental floss. Best to do it as soon as you take delivery to prevent the "burn in" as Eugene mentions. The adhesive gets harder over time as well.

[DanishPastry]

Good points. There could indeed be slight shadow where the badges are removed. Hopefully that would fade as time passes.
Will make the request and either they will or they wont.

[Perky]

I would not let the dealership do it, I have seen paint damage (admittedly not easily visible at a glance) by authorised dealership debadging a £100K BMW. I simply don't trust them. It is easy, you just need to take your time.

My car is 13 months old although most of the time it is kept in the garage. The procedure took me 30 minutes in total including the preparation and clean up. The result is perfect; as good as not having had the badges from the factory (I wish Volvo would offer that). No marks or scratches not even under a bright LED.

First wash the whole area (boot lid) with a car shampoo and make sure no grit is surrounding the badge- use a soft brush around the badges. Do NOT use a heat gun, just a hair dryer on the low setting. Use your hand to make sure the paint does not over heat. Allow 2-3 minutes. Once the badge can be wobbled using your fingers gently, use a fishing line to cheese wire the glue parallel to the body of the car- resist the temptation of pulling up the fishing line away from the car body as that can tilt the badge and cause a scratch. Let the badge drop or pull away from the paint keeping it parallel to the car body, do NOT lift up one edge of the badge as the other edge will dig into the paint. Whilst the glue is still warm use your finger (ideally wearing a thin latex/nitrile glove) to peel it off. Probably 99% of the glue comes off by this stage. Only if the glue is very old you may need a tar/glue remover otherwise a good quality polish with a pad will get rid off all the marks. Take as much time as you need at this stage and repeat until there is no mark. You should not get a "burn-in" if you do it right and spend time on the polishing. Cars older than 5 years can be debadged with no residual mark but the polishing will take much longer.

In my opinion, it looks much better and easier to clean in the future too. I saw a new S60 with no badges, not even the Volvo badge, it looked good. I decided to keep the Volvo badge on mine as I think the XC40 would look odd without one; the boot is too big and the recessed part for the badge would look strangely empty.

I believe you can use dental floss instead of fishing line but I have never used it personally.

[Wad]

I have found soaking with WD 40 and then removing the badge with flat plastic strapping, sometimes found on parcels, always works for me. I started doing this when I had an early turbo V70 or 740 which was supposed to be a red rag to the villains.

[Supercharge]

I would not let the dealership do it, I have seen paint damage (admittedly not easily visible at a glance) by authorised dealership debadging a £100K BMW. I simply don't trust them. It is easy, you just need to take your time.

My car is 13 months old although most of the time it is kept in the garage. The procedure took me 30 minutes in total including the preparation and clean up. The result is perfect; as good as not having had the badges from the factory (I wish Volvo would offer that). No marks or scratches not even under a bright LED.

First wash the whole area (boot lid) with a car shampoo and make sure no grit is surrounding the badge- use a soft brush around the badges. Do NOT use a heat gun, just a hair dryer on the low setting. Use your hand to make sure the paint does not over heat. Allow 2-3 minutes. Once the badge can be wobbled using your fingers gently, use a fishing line to cheese wire the glue parallel to the body of the car- resist the temptation of pulling up the fishing line away from the car body as that can tilt the badge and cause a scratch. Let the badge drop or pull away from the paint keeping it parallel to the car body, do NOT lift up one edge of the badge as the other edge will dig into the paint. Whilst the glue is still warm use your finger (ideally wearing a thin latex/nitrile glove) to peel it off. Probably 99% of the glue comes off by this stage. Only if the glue is very old you may need a tar/glue remover otherwise a good quality polish with a pad will get rid off all the marks. Take as much time as you need at this stage and repeat until there is no mark. You should not get a "burn-in" if you do it right and spend time on the polishing. Cars older than 5 years can be debadged with no residual mark but the polishing will take much longer.

In my opinion, it looks much better and easier to clean in the future too. I saw a new S60 with no badges, not even the Volvo badge, it looked good. I decided to keep the Volvo badge on mine as I think the XC40 would look odd without one; the boot is too big and the recessed part for the badge would look strangely empty.

I believe you can use dental floss instead of fishing line but I have never used it personally.

Mmm...not sure, looks strange, like it's missing something!

BTW you have the same phone as my wife; a 1st gen iPhone SE. It has a good camera.

I did try a similar technique on a previous car. But didn't get into as much detail, no heat, just teeth flossing line pulled through, then a polish.

[Perky]

Mmm...not sure, looks strange, like it's missing something!

BTW you have the same phone as my wife; a 1st gen iPhone SE. It has a good camera.

I did try a similar technique on a previous car. But didn't get into as much detail, no heat, just teeth flossing line pulled through, then a polish.

How on earth you can tell the photo was taken with an iPhone SE? impressive but at the same time rather disconcerting.

[DanishPastry]

Thanks for the tips and for the most interesting photo. I was planning (and yesterday asked the dealer) to remove the T 5 [R-Design] [AWD] badges.

It hadn't occured to me to remove the XC40 too. I think I like the spartan look...

I'm going to call the dealer first thing tomorrow and ask them not to do any de-badging, as I now feel I can do it myself with the advice here.
Things are a bit complicated because the salesman I bought from promptly went on 7-days furlough so my lines of communication aren't great.

I was slightly nervous about them de-badging in case it negated the (bring it back if you don't like it) Satisfaction Guarantee. So best all-round if they don't do anything to it.

My plan will be to first remove just [R-Design] and [AWD] as they are the ones that I personally feel look ugly and make the back look cluttered.
Then I can think about T5 and think even harder about XC40.

If I right-click on your photo and 'Save image...', I can then examine the Properties of the image and see 'Camera model iPhone SE (1st generation)'. To (perhaps) put your mind at rest, I don't see any other compromising personal information and specifically I don't see a GPS location.

[eugen61]

Mmm...not sure, looks strange, like it's missing something!

BTW you have the same phone as my wife; a 1st gen iPhone SE. It has a good camera.

I did try a similar technique on a previous car. But didn't get into as much detail, no heat, just teeth flossing line pulled through, then a polish.

How on earth you can tell the photo was taken with an iPhone SE? impressive but at the same time rather disconcerting.

There are simple ways to share pictures without metadata. But that’s not a topic for this forum.