Sun Visor Safety Airbag Decal Removal

[wemct]

The two items that annoy me on US cars are the amber turn signal markers and the silly safety decals on the sun visors. I replaced the amber markers with the clear markers earlier this week. Today I tackled the sun visors. The decals are very easy to remove on some cars. On my Aston, you lift a corner and the entire decal peels off in one piece. On cars with black vinyl sun visors I have applied black vinyl rectangular blanks to cover over the safety decals. On the Taycan, the sun visors are fabric so the better option was to remove the decal. It was a bit of a PITA, but with an hour of effort the decals were gone. I don't know where Porsche found the adhesive for the sun visor decals, but if the car is a solid as the adhesive, this is one rock solid car.

The most common adhesive remover for this type of project is 91% isopropyl alcohol. Unless you want to spend the next month removing the decals on the Taycan don't bother with the isopropyl alcohol (in addition with COVID-19 91% isopropyl alcohol is a valuable item). Denatured alcohol works better, but the odor is a bit strong and the ethanol in denatured alcohol is not the best thing to play with for an hour. The best choice was acetone. I got a small container from Home Depot (under $8), an old white tee shirt (paper towels are not sturdy enough), and gloves.

Leave the visors in the closed position to provide a stable base to push against. Make sure you have good ventilation. Pour the acetone on a piece of the tee shirt. Hold the damp rag on the edge of the decal. WIthin 10 seconds you will see the edge start to lift. The decal will not lift off in a single piece (hence the reason it takes an hour). Pour more acetone on the rag and use a sliding motion to continue to get acetone under the decal and roll the decal off the visor. The decal will come off in bits and pieces, but you will make steady progress especially with fresh acetone on the rag. The color of the fabric under the decal will look a little different from the fabric on the rest of the sun visor. The color should blend as time passes and the visors get more exposure to sunlight. It is already a 100% better than the awful safety decals. The difference in color is more exaggerated in the photos due to the reflection of the flash.

 

[felixtb]

nice job and walk through..

 

[Cpoarchy]

nice job and walk through..

This might be an option
https://visorsleeves.com/

 

[Austin_yeahbaby]

looks like in the USA you have a warning label on both visors?

In the UK it's just one on the passenger side so another alternative might be just to order the part number for the side without labels.

I wonder if certain left hand drive markets don't have a warning on the drivers side so you could but a left/right from different markets without the warning sticker.

Picture of Dawse's right hand 4s showing warning sticker only on left visor and no warning on the left and...
Dee's left hand drive showing the opposite.

Therefore... you could possibly order a full set without warning labels!

 

[ron_b]

@wemct, I agree with others, that is an excellent walkthrough. I generally remove similar stickers by using a heat gun or hairdryer if you don't happen to have a heat gun. Wondering if you or others have tried that?

I would test but I don't have the sticker, or the visor, or the vehicle. Estimate October delivery.

 

[Vim Schrotnock]

This is a great walkthrough, and an absolute necessity to clean up what is otherwise one of the most beautiful interiors of any car on the market.

 

[louv]

On other cars, I use "GooGone" or other adhesive-removing petrochemicals. It's always a slow process... soak, peel, soak, peel, soak, peel. I usually remove the visors from the car.... but I haven't looked to see how easy that is in this car.

UPDATE: Originally I posted that I used “Goof-Off”... yeah, no. That’s a relatively gentle citrus based cleaner. Good for some things... NOT good for this removal. Hit it with Acetone or Goo-Gone (acetone & other nasty stuff). Wear gloves. Test A little bit first. Be safe... blah blah blah. Don’t die. K?

 

[louv]

If I recall... Canada doesn't have these stickers... so if you can find the Canadian parts, you can get them sticker-free. (This memory is from a different brand of car... so your mileage may vary).

 

[wemct]

If I recall... Canada doesn't have these stickers... so if you can find the Canadian parts, you can get them sticker-free. (This memory is from a different brand of car... so your mileage may vary).

I have heard that like most Porsche parts, a set of new visors is very expensive. I have removed the stickers from a number of cars. The adhesive on the Taycan is almost fused into the fabric. After the initial struggle with the isopropyl alcohol and the fact that the sun visors are covered in fabric, I was reluctant to risk starting a fire with the heat gun. A hair dryer definitely will not work. I have some of the citrus based adhesive removers, but I wasn't sure if the color from the citrus options would disclose the fabric. The acetone I bought from Home Depot was colorless and evaporated very fast.

 

[Miwa]

Those pics don't look like alcantara headliner and visors... Before you go after your expensive visors, I'd double check. Folks I know that wage war against the stickers just cough up for the very-not-cheap replacement visors.

 

[MassDriver]

If I recall... Canada doesn't have these stickers... so if you can find the Canadian parts, you can get them sticker-free. (This memory is from a different brand of car... so your mileage may vary).

Unfortunately we've got them, in two languages no less

 

[Vim Schrotnock]

Goof-off is terrible. Acetone is the way to go for pretty much every sticky thing that you want to remove from a surface. Just check the surface first...

 

[wemct]

Goof-off is terrible. Acetone is the way to go for pretty much every sticky thing that you want to remove from a surface. Just check the surface first...

Acetone worked well on my Taycan fabric sun visors. I would have used something else if the visors were vinyl (acetone will melt vinyl).

 

[louv]

I removed my visors from the car so I could use the nasty chemicals outside the car. All is takes is a T25 torx, a plastic wedge (to pop off the screw cover), and a tiny tool (to disconnect the electrical connector).

I used Goo-Gone. It’s Acetone plus a few other nasty petrochemicals.

 

[Mike in CA]

I've revived this old thread because I just picked up my 4S and, like @wemct and others, I very much despise the yellow airbag warning stickers on the sun visors.

In previous Porsches I've used denatured alcohol and one trick that I've found is that if, after applying a rag to wet the sticker, I've used a q-tip soaked in alcohol to "paint" under the edge of the sticker as I begin to peel it back. In this way I can usually get the sticker off in one piece. But I digress...

My new 4S has the optional race-tex headliner which means the visors are also in race-tex fabric and I'm leery of using denatured alcohol or any other solvent like acetone. Does anyone have experience successfully removed the stickers from race-tex covered visors or any other advice (besides leaving the stickers alone, of course ).

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