Sticker Situation
A poster to Yahoo's TakomaDC group generated some traffic yesterday when she asked people how they get old DMV registration stickers off their windshields. "Is it just a matter of huge quantities of patience with a utility knife?" she wondered. "These things are a bear!"
Another poster forwarded the following tip, which someone else had sent her a few years back when she'd faced the same problem:
I have had some success with this method. I use a product called Goo Gone (you can get it at CVS or a supermarket). It's an oily liquid that smells like citrus. I make a pad out of a couple of paper towels and saturate it with the stuff. Then I squirt a lot of the liquid on the sticker itself. I tape the pad to the sticker, so the sticker is soaking in the stuff. I leave it overnight, then leave the car in the sun for about an hour so the sticker warms up. You still have to scrape, but at least it comes off.
I think the DC DMV needs to consult with NASA. If they used the same glue on the tiles on the space shuttle, they wouldn't have any problems. It's almost indestructable.
That didn't keep more advice from pouring in yesterday. Try outsourcing, suggests another poster:
I normally go to a gas station where they have great scrapers for taking off such stickers. It usually takes one of the mechanics less than 2 minutes to get the entire sticker off - I tip them a few bucks and I'm on my way!
Recommends another poster:
You can also try rubber cement thinner. The major brand name is "Bestine" and can be found in any art or arts & crafts store. Essentially you soak the sticker in Bestine and then scape it off. The process takes several minutes, versus the overnight soaking with Goo Be Gone.
I don't own a car, so I don't get what the big deal is. Can any drivers out there shed light on this? Just how stubborn are those stickers?
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1:59 pm
It's tough, no doubt about it.
I've had good luck using a razor-blade scraper, then rubbing off the residue with Ronsonol lighter fluid.
2:15 pm
Is it really that big a deal? A razor blade (NOT a utility knife!) and about 2 minutes is all it takes. And the ones that they use now are only sticky around the outside edge, they are much easier than before. I have never had any trouble getting one of these off. In fact, I've even removed one without any damage at all to the sticker, and re-used it when I had to get a windshield replaced once.
Soaking it in goo off? Apart from the fact that your car will probably reek for months, this is just so unnecessary.
Hardware store. Razor blade. Done. Your mom should have taught you this is how you remove stickers from glass.
2:19 pm
here in ny they plaster big neon green squares on your windows when you park illegally during street cleaning. took me about 3 hours of scraping the first time i got one. then while driving with a half-destroyed sticker on the bronx river pkwy one morning, a kindly ny'er yelled to me at a stoplight "HEY DUMMY, SOAP AND WATER TAKES THAT RIGHT OFF"
he was right, like water off a duck's back. who says northerners aren't helpful?
2:40 pm
yeah, i heard horror stories about how hard it is to get those stickers off, and then the first one i had to take off was simple. the razor blade just slipped it off the windshield. i could have reused it too, if i needed to.
just a touch of goo gone afterwards will get the (tiny) stubborn spots that might have stayed behind
3:10 pm
Why even bother with the goo gone? You're just going to stick a new one in the same place, aren't you?
12:40 am
just to clean things off, because i wasn't sure i could get the sticker in the same spot (very slanted windshield, makes it touch to reach in there without tiny tiny hands)
9:55 pm
i've just been lining my windshield with them like a decorative border.