Vehicle: 2001 E430 Sport in Desert Silver and 2002 C320 Sport Wagon in Arctic White
Location: Germantown, Maryland
Posts: 1,510
Advice needed
When I purchased my car from the Dealership, they removed the previous owners initials from both front doors. The pin stripes are painted on and there is a 1 1/2" gap between. I can not fill the gap with the stick on pin stripes because the previous owner had them painted to match the Italian flag colors (green and red) What would you do?
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E430 Sport
2001 E430 in Desert Silver with Sport Package, COMAND, Xenon Lights, Rear Sunshade, Heated Seats. Added K40 Stealth Radar, 30% Tint, XM Radio! www.premierbasement.com
Sure why not. My mom had hers done on a 85 SL and its was very nice. I dont think you have much of an option considering you have a 2 inch gap in your pinstripes. Go for It!!
I have to admit I'd be tempted to just remove the pinstripes altogether. Anything you do is going to look rather mickey-moused, unless you want to spend a lot of dough at a quality paint shop either getting them to match the existing pinstripes or inserting your initials or some other such thing.
A bit of product and elbow-grease and you can remove them easily enough for less than $10.
Alternatively, you could expand the gap to 2-3" and put in more so you have breaks in them every 18-24" or so (evenly spaced of course, including to the front/rear) and that might look interesting enough to pull off. If not, you can then just continue and remove it all.
JMHO...
Take care and enjoy the ride,
Greg
__________________ If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice. Meister Eckhart
When you learn from your own mistakes, that's experience.
When you learn from the mistakes of others, that's wisdom.
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Vehicle: 2001 E320 - Brilliant Silver/Ash: MBCA member
Location: The Mountain State
Posts: 6,363
acarter53, if you like them (other than the gap of course) I'd have them fixed. Otherwise, since they are such an odd color combination, I'd probably remove them.
Mine came with double black painted pinstripes (very good job and they look good on silver) but I considered having them removed too, primarily because they are after-market. But I asked on the Detailing forum and it seems like the only suggestions were to power buff them off. I decided not to do this because I didn't want to lose any of the clearcoat in the process.
If anyone has a completely harmless method (calling gregs210), I'd like to read about it. Good Luck with your eventual decision!
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Ich liebe meinen Mercedes-Benz!
acarter53, if you like them (other than the gap of course) I'd have them fixed. Otherwise, since they are such an odd color combination, I'd probably remove them.
Mine came with double black painted pinstripes (very good job and they look good on silver) but I considered having them removed too, primarily because they are after-market. But I asked on the Detailing forum and it seems like the only suggestions were to power buff them off. I decided not to do this because I didn't want to lose any of the clearcoat in the process.
If anyone has a completely harmless method (calling gregs210), I'd like to read about it. Good Luck with your eventual decision!
Completely harmless? Does such a thing exist?
My car came with pinstripes as well as some silly sig and logo crap on the back end. Unfortunately it was a true quality job: they affixed the pinstripes and logo stuff and then clear-coated over it. The junk on the back had to come off (their logo from about 15' away looked like a variation on one of those stupid stick-on bullet holes) and it took me about an hour with SSR (can't recall if it took 1.5 or 2) to get them off. If you proceed slowly and carefully, you tear through the added-on clear-coat, then cut through the pinstripe, and then you're fine. If you continue past that -- or use a power buffer (unless you're a true pro) you will indeed damage the original factory clear-coat.
After that much work to pull the logo and sig from the back, I decided the pinstripes (also a split-black line variation, one wider than the other) could wait. Of course, now that I've had both front fenders dinged in a way that has also marred the pinstripes, I'm going to have to get busy with them at some point.
Re: AC's car, I'm going to guess it may not actually be paint but is really pinstripe, after you clear-coat you can't really tell for sure.
Hey, MM, fly me out and we can spend a weekend dumping your pinstripes and then do the fuel filter. Heck, we can even drain the oil after the other idea I tossed you in e-mail. I'd bring the SSR along but you know there is that new liquid restriction on flights.
Advice needed 
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