--How To Modify Your Subaru Badge of Ownership--

So we've all seen them by now, and I'm sure a few people had the idea to somehow modify them. If your car is anything like mine, the silver plastic just doesn't blend with the aesthetics of the vehicle. The problem with these is that you'll pretty much destroy the badges trying to peel the emblems up, so I became determined to find a way to make this work.


Look familiar?






After a little trial and error, here's the tools I ended up using. I can't remember the name of the white thing, but I used to use them to take car interiors apart when I installed 12V. Number is on it though if you want one. They're awesome for not scratching/damaging things as you pry them apart. Best $7 I ever spent.






After some careful poking and prodding, I figured out it's best to come at these from the corners. Be extremely careful not to damage the icon...it's kinda like tinfoil and is VERY fragile. The more gentle lifting/prying and less scraping between the plastic and icon, the better.





Then I would slip the doohickey in behind the razor knife.






Then, like above, use mostly lifting/prying to peel up the icon. I developed a back and forth rocking motion while lifting/prying. I say this because you have to be extremely careful not to get in a hurry and scrape up and damage the tinfoil-ish icon. Ask me how I know.






After completely removing the icon, there was some damage on the one I did first (from scraping with the knife instead of lifting/prying). The sooner you switch to the plastic device and away from sharp metal, the better. If you do the same, you might be able to kinda repair it like I did. I carefully folded the icon back into place.








To get the number badge off, long story short, you pretty much have to destroy it. I came up with a solution to that below though.






This is what you're left with. I used wax paper to preserve the sticky stuff on the back of the icons, but don't leave them on there for a couple days like I did because they'll adhere to the wax paper and pull part of it up.






I then put the plastic pieces on a baking pan so I could goo-gone the sticky off (I didn't want inconsistent bumps in the badges). Two things here...One: don't use a baking pan you value because washing off goo-gone is a giant PITA (hint, it's water proof)...Two: don't soak them in it because the goo-gone started to soak through the sticker backings on the backside of the plastic (Need to keep the stickers intact to stick on car).






After that, it was time to paint the badges black. My new weapon of choice is spray-on truck bed liner because I didn't want to have to re-do this after paint chipped or plasti-dip peeled. I've used paint and plasti-dip for things like my front lip and grille, but NOTHING holds up like the spray liner, and NOTHING is as forgiving when rattle-canning. It's slightly textured, so you're left with an even looking, flawless surface. I can't say enough good things about the stuff. But I digress. Pictured is a sharp screw I used to push the badges around between coats so they didn't stick to the cardboard (do this or you'll be sorry). Ask me how I know.






Here's what they look like "painted".






All together.






I didn't trust the leftover sticky on the back of the icons to hold them back on for years, so I opted to be safe by using super glue. I learned many things the hard way on this project and this step was no exception, so learn from my mistakes. You must use TINY dabs of super glue or else the glue will ooze out the edges and show up white on the black background. Here's the second one I did that turned out great.








All together.






The next step was to go see my sticker guy and come up with something to put inside the circular badge since there was no way to save the number. This turned out to be great because the blue number didn't match my car at all either, and I went with a red sticker that really helped it blend in with the theme of the car. I originally though about doing an L7 sticker, but because it was so small, you wouldn't be able to "read" it unless you were really close, so I went with the much simpler Fuji Heavy Industries logo. On to the finished product.








Hope this helps. Enjoi.

People really put these on their cars?

I guess because taillight tint.

Was thinking you could plastic dip over them while on the car too. And peel of extras.

Just for you John.

I must say, it looks a lot better how you did rather than how they come in "stock" form.

Oh, I neglected to mention that I spent almost two hours measuring the trunk and looking at pictures of stock badges on google images to determine the best placement for the badge. I ended up going with one badge-height below the body line. Then, after measuring a million times, I got the top line of the badge perfectly "centered", but it was for not because I didn't account for the surface being smaller at the bottom line of the badge and it ended up looking skewed slightly left.

I then spent a lot of time making the badge level, but I realized it looked better to line it up the the body line above it, so that's how I aligned the template. One badge height below the body line and centered (easier said than done). The template was lined up with the body line perfectly, but as I was working my way from left to right attaching the individual icons, they began to slant upward slightly (even though they didn't seem to against the template at the time). So now the badge is slightly higher on the right than on the left, as aligned with the body line.

The good news is that, although the badge ended up slightly misaligned with the body line, it ended up lining up pretty well with the level of the entire car, and I'm actually really happy with it now.

Originally Posted by BAC5.2

People really put these on their cars?

I guess because taillight tint.

If you don't like it, go away. Keep your negative opinions to yourself please.

Originally Posted by end0

I must say, it looks a lot better how you did rather than how they come in "stock" form.

Thx, agreed!

Originally Posted by '06GRPLGT

If you don't like it, go away. Keep your negative opinions to yourself please.

Welcome to the internet. If you don't like it, go away.

I've been on the internet longer than you know. I stopped being being bothered by words on a computer screen ten years ago. I've been everything from mod to admin, and as such, I've always tried to set an example for how I'd like forum members to respect one another (I'm also one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, so it's my nature anyway).

I know better than to argue with an admin on his home turf, so I'll just say that I feel like your post was completely uncalled for. I put a lot of effort into this, and you insinuated that anyone putting one of these on their car is foolish. Then, you insulted my taste in taillights. For the record, I'm not a huge fan of taillight tint and I only tinted the taillights because the car is red, and the stock red lenses clashed horribly.

Anyhoo, I guess my point is that I'm surprised that you, as an admin, are acting like an e-bully. Your post is the kind of post I would just delete right away with a request to keep it on topic and productive.

Hopefully we can meet some time and you'll see that I have pretty good taste.

I don't question your niceness, and I applaud your effort. You clearly put a lot of time into this, and I'm not trying to insult your taste in any way. The beauty of the internet is that we don't all have to agree. I think the "my X subaru" badges look tacky, horribly out of place, and utterly ridiculous. That says NOTHING about the time you put into modifying them, or anything even remotely suggesting that anyone putting these on their car are foolish. If you want a compliment, you painted them nicely and they look better in black than they do in silver. Good walkthrough, also.

As for taillight tint, I won't yield. While the looks are questionable, there is no question that they reduce safety. I will now say that anyone willing to tint their taillights is foolish. And I'm not insulting your "taste" when I say that.

I feel like this conversation just got a lot better. I, too, have thought that every one of these badges I've seen looked exactly how you described, so I was determined to make it align properly and match the theme of the car. I'll have to put up a pic of the whole car from behind. It actually flows pretty well, IMO.


Safety point is valid on the tails. I'll just say that I did them with a pro and we matched the brightness of the taillights to that of the 3rd brake light through 35% tint. With all three combined, it's very obvious when I'm stopping, and I don't have one light brighter or darker than the others. They look really dark in the pic, but they're actually not nearly that dark (and they look a lot better) in the light.

I was definitely reluctant to tint them, but if you look at stock tails on a red LGT, it clashes BAD. So I put a lot of time and thought into how I did them anyway. They're also WELL polished, so they're definitely among the better jobs I've seen.

Thx for positive comments

Listen, if it is way more important to you to endanger others and yourself to look cool than to be reasonable, at least own it. You reduced two of the taillights output more than 1/3. Your third brake light is not required by law. Your required braking lights are at least 1/3 less obvious when you are stopping... IN FRONT OF OTHERS.

We don't need no stinking badges! - YouTube

We don't need no stinking badges! - YouTube

Blazing Saddles - We dont need no stinking badges.. - YouTube

Blazing Saddles - We dont need no stinking badges.. - YouTube

Originally Posted by '06GRPLGT

Safety point is valid on the tails. I'll just say that I did them with a pro and we matched the brightness of the taillights to that of the 3rd brake light through 35% tint. With all three combined, it's very obvious when I'm stopping, and I don't have one light brighter or darker than the others. They look really dark in the pic, but they're actually not nearly that dark (and they look a lot better) in the light.

I was definitely reluctant to tint them, but if you look at stock tails on a red LGT, it clashes BAD. So I put a lot of time and thought into how I did them anyway. They're also WELL polished, so they're definitely among the better jobs I've seen.

Safety is the ONLY valid point on the tails. I don't care how badly they clash, how well they match the third brake light through tint (which is NOT a primary stop lamp, and is even less of one through tint), or how they don't look dark in the light. No matter how you slice it, you've made your car less safe for other people on the road. You have purposefully made your car, and your intentions as a driver, more difficult to interpret by other drivers. I'm sure they'll look just as cool when you are at-fault for getting rear-ended at night.

Tinted tails are foolish. No amount of aesthetics are going to change that, nor is how good of a job you did.

If you want a compliment, then you did a good job of not TOTALLY incapacitating the functionality of the lights by leaving a small section not tinted.

Who sells that tail-light to black hole conversion kit?