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Paint flaking off badge

M

Mistborn

CEG'er
Joined
Sep 30, 2013
Messages
57
Location
Long Island, NY, 11768
So the badge on my drivers side that says LX has lost a good deal of paint. The main color of the badge is black, with the letters unpainted and chrome. There is enough black missing that you can no longer make out the letters at a glance, only the outline once you look closely. Has anyone had this problem?

The only two solutions I have come up with are A) Using some enamel and a small brush to repaint the black, and then clear-coating it. Or B) Remove the two LX badges all together.

Both options have their own potential problems in my mind. If I paint in the black, it's got the potential to look bad, depending on how well I can paint it, and even if I paint it perfectly, I feel there is still a chance it will end up looking ugly. As far as removing it, there is the chance that the paint underneath the badge will be a slightly different color due to a lack of fading. However, I am not sure how much fading there is on the rest of the paint, as it is low mileage(less that 35k) and was parked under a car-port(in FL) for about 13 years of its 15 year life.

It seems to me to be a bit of a roll of the dice either way, so I am seeing if anyone has dealt with this issue, what they did, and if they had good results.

Here's a pic of my problem.
http://s938.photobucket.com/user/Ko...-78c79fd2ab75_zps4a790db5.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1
 
This is a common problem for non-SVT Contiques. There are a couple of solutions though.
-You can have some vinyl stickers printed up that you can simply put over the current LX badge.
-You can replace the badge with another one from the junkyard
-Remove the badge altogether and put in side turn signals
(If you remove them completely, be prepared because under that badge is a hole in the fender)

Hope that helps.
 
Ah, thanks for the info on there being a hole behind them. That would have been an unpleasant surprise. I'll have to give this some further thought, maybe put a little reflector there, or even a blinker wired into my turn signals if I decide to remove them.

I'm not really that attached to the badges, so I don't think I'm going to replace them, especially since there seems to be a solid lack of Contours at local junkyards.
 
Based on the options I thought of, and you suggested, I think my first move is going to be to try to re-paint it myself. If the end result doesn't end up looking good enough to make me happy, then it's basically no harm no foul, since all other options will still be open to me. The reflector or turn signals will end up making this a little bit more of a project than I was looking for originally, but it might be worth doing, if the paint does not work out. My car is as basic as you can get, so I like to add little touches to make it unique in its own way. I will update with pics when I give the paint a try, for better or worse lol.
 
Tried painting them. It would probably be alright like that, look fine at a casual glance, but I am not happy with it. I went and bought a pair of Audi side markers today, so that's the route I decided to take.

I had been trying to decide, so for the last few days I have been eyeballing every Audi I saw on the road lol.
 
nemegyhy.jpg
 
The ones I bought were the OEM lights. Like yours Kevin, only not smoked. I liked the smoked ones I was seeing, but by buying the ones I did, I now have all the pieces in one purchase. I had looked at quite a few Contour pics with them, but I wanted to get a better feel for how the lights looked on a car in person.

How are the badges attached the car? Adhesive?
 
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