My truck came with these really, horribly ugly 'smoke' vent shades. The amount of ugliness is unimaginable, especially because I'm ditching my 'smoke' bug deflector and putting one on to match my paint color.

I've been hesitant to remove them because they seem to be held onto the body with some sort of double-sided tape/foam/gluey business. What would be the best and safest way to remove them without destroying the paint underneath? Any sorts of good chemicals for that? Any help is appreciated.

 

I ran over a piece of gum with my truck on a hot day one time without realizing, and as I drove my truck around, the spinning tires and the heat from the pavement caused it to become viscous and spray streams of gum all down the side of my truck. I used Goo Gone to remove it, worked fantastic. I wracked my brain about what was safe to use yet powerful enough to get this stuff off. Goo Gone is citrus based (smells like oranges!!) so its not too abrasive on things such as the clearcoat on your truck, but MAN it works good!! Might give that a try. Good luck.

-Chris

 

I've always been a big fan of WD-40, myself. Good luck, Peace, Dave.

 

Googone is about the 6th thing on the list of best inventions ever.

Adrianspeeder

 

Well, I managed to brute force the damn things off, I will try the GooGone and WD-40 to take care of the remaining adhesive. Can I just say, anyone who thinks it's a good idea to attach anything to their paint with sticky tape and then sell their vehicle is a MORON!

I mean hey, if they weren't hideous, I wouldn't have a problem. Maybe I should glue a banana to the hood as an ornament before I sell the thing or something.

 

Easiest way to deal with the double side foam tape is to "slice" through it with fishing line, dental floss, or similar. Just use a "flossing" motion to cut the foam center, then use goo-gone, wd-40 or whatever your favorite stuff is to remove the adhesive portion.

This works to remove emblems, such as the ugly dealer badges, or to replace the factory ones, or to remove other types of trim (like ventshades).

 

Consider yourself lucky that the truck didn't have hood scoops with 3M tape. Those are funny to watch fly off hoods on the interstate, but the best is when people use 3M tape on large visors. I think it is actually supplied with the products.

 

Well, I managed to get the adhesive off for the most part, using both WD-40 and 3M General Purpose Adhesive Remover. It was annoying and tedious, but it looks pretty good now that it's off, although there is still kind of a little line where the edge of the tape was.

As soon as I got the shades off, I noticed that my driver side door and the body panel aren't flush at the top or bottom of the door. That's just a can of worms I didn't want to discover.