Vinyl Stripe

[badhemi]

looked around and couldn't find anything on this. the vinyl stripe on my rumble bee has scratches on it. can they be taken out safely or does the stripe need to be replaced. after waxing most of them are covered but some are still there. some knowledge on this would be great. the stripe was taped off before i started taking out the swirls and scratches. i must say pinnicle works wonders on yellow.

[Nuke33]

I have always wondered about this too

[badhemi]

no takers on this one?

[ScottB]

doubtful ...if in the tape, then it is pretty much permanent. What about a sharpie (black) to hide it ??

[badhemi]

tried that this weekend. the sharpie is flat black so it didn't work. ended up wiping it off.

[budman3]

You'll probably either have to live with it or get it replaced. From the looks of your avitar ... I'd live with it.

[bambo2888]

maybe try the dealer, they may have soem type of a repair kit for it, since I'm sure you're not the only one who has this problem. Its worth a shot at least...

[Jimmie]

Here's an old trick that we used to use if a guy put scratches in his Driver ( wooden golf club). Black paste shoe polish. If you can get the initial coats to lay in then just start bulding with a spit shine.

[bambo2888]

Here's an old trick that we used to use if a guy put scratches in his Driver ( wooden golf club). Black paste shoe polish. If you can get the initial coats to lay in then just start bulding with a spit shine.

hmm, that sounds like a good plan. try it and let us know!

[dennish]

I have some small swirl like scratches in the strips on my Mini Cooper and I just hit them with my PC/Green Pad/Poly-Seal and they is 100% improvement. But I was prepare to remove them or replace them if it doesn't work Mine was to the point that I was going to do something even if it was wrong.

[badhemi]

i'll give these a try. thanks for the tips. new stripes are about $380

[White95DodgeRam]

from the dealer there that much when i was looking into getting bed stripes i was looking at around 60 bucks from a graphics shop.

[badhemi]

poly seal worked wonders. stripes look much better now. the rumble bee is a worker bee BUT it's taken very good care of! this truck has won 1st place at several shows and will again this year. i have over 40 hours in paint correction since January and the paint is smooth as glass. i've learned alot from the folks on this site and with your help i'll learn more. thanks for the advice. used poly seal and a white pad with the pc on 3.5 and that did the trick.

[dennish]

Glade to hear it work for you -- sure worked great for me also.:applause:

[kiteman]

Resurrecting a very old thread, but my response is relevant so didn't want to create a new topic. I just wanted to add that I had a detailer use a very very light polish and it removed swirls from my glossy stripes. However, he seemed to have carried over just a little onto the matte stripes and polished a 6x1 inch area that now looks brighter than the rest of the matte stripes. It's pretty inconspicuous (though bugs me because it's a new car).

I could detail the rest of the matte stripes to all look brighter I guess, but quite frankly the matte looks llike there is very little to abrade and polish, while the gloss stripe looked like it had a lot of clear coat on the top (the gloss). Now I'm concerned that 6x1 inch area on the matte stripe is going to deteriorate and/or the UV will harm it, and that he *cut* too much of the coating off. How soon would I notice if it started deteriorating? He ran over it accidentally with the PC pad for maybe 5 seconds, and again the product he was using was so light that i doubt it did much harm to the stripe, however obviously created a hue that isn't on the rest of the stripes which prompted my concern that maybe he did do damage to the stripe after all. How concerned should I be?

Any help is appreciated.