Leaderboard

Wanted to add my building/retrofit/cool-stuff experiences. Always hard to find detail and pictures in the wild so hoping this helps others. Badge and Emblem Replacement - Major Reason - I think the Black looks much better on the Steel Grey body paint than the factory chrome. Tips/Tricks/How-To 1) Give yourself plenty of time and make sure its not going to rain......the warmer the better as it makes removal easier. 2) Hair dryer on a low-setting will help to "loosen" the glue. Well its not glue its more like double-sided sticky-pad material. My car is only a month old so it may be harder on older cars as the adhesive will have set and the padding may come off in little pieces instead. 3) I used dental floss to "saw" through the glue holding the badges and emblems in place. You can use minty-fresh or plain dental floss :-) The front and rear badge have A LOT of the sticky-padding so keep working away at it. I found using an old ATM Card allows you to pry it off and doesn't scratch the paint. There are also 3 protruding plastic notches on the rear of the badge so it won't come off as easy as the emblems. Be warned it is near impossible to get the badges off without snapping them. The joy of the black protruding notches is that it will only line up and fit one way......and that's perfectly straight. 4) I used blue masking tape (painters-tape) to line up the original emblems as once you remove the sticky-pad and the residual adhesive you WON'T see the outline of the old emblems. After the work and cost you don't want to screw it up and have the emblem not straight........it'll **** you off every time you admire your work!! 5) Cleaning off the residual adhesive I used rubbing-alcohol and a CLEAN buffing cloth. Its easier if you can grab a little piece of the pad and SLOWLY pull it off as it comes off in one nice movement without the need to scrape off the adhesive with a fingernail. 6) Shine a light and look for any imperfections, you want the surface to be spotless, clean and dry before fitting the replacements. The joy of rubbing-alcohol is that it dries quick and leaves no residue. They're pretty much the factory-part so remove the rear protective strip and then line it up and press hard on the individual letters. I also used a paint-roller to roll over the emblem before removing the protective clear plastic just to be sure it was stuck on nice and flat. 7) Link for the badges and emblems. You can buy individual or a "pack". I opted for the body-paint coloured front and rear badges and the 3-pack for the emblems. http://www.superskoda.com/Skoda/OCTAVIA-III/Octavia-III-original-Skoda-emblem-INT-version http://www.superskoda.com/Skoda/OCTAVIA-III/Octavia-III-original-Skoda-MONTE-CARLO-black-emblem-set-´SKODA´--´OCTAVIA´--´RS-245´