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" It&amp;#039;s just like the newspaper ad said: one owner, low mileage, good rubber, with all the paperwork from proper dealership maintenance since it was new. There&amp;#039;s only one problem--the bumper stickers, all 12 of them, the Day-Glo orange pinstriping, and the peeling, amateurishly applied purple window tinting. (Okay, three problems.) You really don&amp;#039;t want the neighbors thinking that you Question Authority or Brake for Hallucinations. But the price is right--if only you weren&amp;#039;t ashamed to drive it home. You peel up the corner of one of the bumper stickers with your fingernail, and it breaks off in small slivers and leaves a gooey residue behind. Maybe you should just look for another, less sticky car. Peel And Unstick Relax. Removing all that pressure-sensitive film is straightforward. Most of it should just peel off. But time and the ravages of ultraviolet rays from exposure to lots of sunlight will dry out the adhesive and make the film too brittle to peel. Worse, the half-dried adhesive can&amp;#039;t be scraped off without the danger of damaging the paint. And that tinting film that&amp;#039;s bubbling and wrinkling on the rear window offers up another problem: Scraping it off with something as innocuous as a credit card will certainly damage the silk-screened defroster grid. Here are some tried-and-true, relatively simple but effective techniques.  Bumper Stickers Peel &amp;#039;em off. This is easiest to do on a sunny day. Just park so the offending sticker is in the sun, wait a half-hour or so for things to get hot, and pry up a corner with a fingernail. Go slowly. Very slowly if the sticker is old and fragile. Sometimes it helps to bend the sticker back nearly flat--by doing it this way, rather than pulling at right angles, you&amp;#039;re less likely to rip the film. It&amp;#039;s the dead of winter and you don&amp;#039;t want that Grateful Dead dancing bear logo your teenager put on your car last weekend? Try heating the panel with a hair dryer or a heat gun for a couple of minutes to soften the sticker&amp;#039;s vinyl film and the adhesive. Still getting off no more than dime-size shreds of vinyl film? You might try to soften the sun-damaged film and its dried-out adhesive with solvent. We like to use citrus-based cleaners like Goo Gone first--they&amp;#039;re less likely to damage paint. Use full-strength and let it soak in for a few minutes. If it&amp;#039;s hot, you may need to cover the area with a plastic bag to keep the solvent from evaporating. More stubborn cases might benefit from a lacquer thinner or another serious solvent. This may also remove paint--test it on a hidden area first and don&amp;#039;t tell us we didn&amp;#039;t warn you. Still stuck? Read on. Stubborn Cases What about those giant woodgrain panels on the side of your minivan or vintage station wagon? They&amp;#039;re too big to peel by hand unless the peeling is easy--which it probably isn&amp;#039;t. 3M, purveyor of all sorts of products that make life easy for professional automotive painters, has an aerosol product called Woodgrain &amp;amp;amp; Stripe Remover. It softens the vinyl so it won&amp;#039;t tear, and loosens the glue. Warning: Apply this product carefully, because overspray will loosen the adhesive that holds down exterior trim, rubber gaskets and vinyl roofs. And it probably will delaminate your sneakers if you&amp;#039;re not careful. Read the label on the can, and mask off any areas you don&amp;#039;t want softened.  Most stickers should peel off with the aid of a hair dryer or just plain sunshine.  Use 3M aerosol solvent to loosen the film and a plastic squeegee or credit card to help peel off stickers and trim. Step Back From The Zebra Pinstripes come in two varieties: tape and painted. Tape stripes will respond to any of the techniques we&amp;#039;ve already suggested. Another method is to use the edge of a credit card (preferably one that&amp;#039;s expired or one of those unsolicited cards you get in the mail) to help peel the stripes up. Leftover adhesive can be removed with solvents. Got painted stripes? Learn to like them or prepare to have the panel repainted because it&amp;#039;s virtually impossible to remove them without damaging the paint. 3M also makes a product called a Stripe Off Wheel, intended for high-speed removal of pinstriping and trim. It consists of expanded polyurethane foam on a wheel that can be chucked into a hand drill. When it is applied lightly to the stripe, the wheel wipes it out like the rubber eraser you used in grade school. The vinyl crumbles, the adhesive rolls up in little balls, and all that&amp;#039;s left is a smudge. The product is easy to use--but there are two important caveats. Be sure the panel is very clean or the dirt will scratch the paint. And use a light touch with a low-speed drill--no air tools or Dremels. Final Prep Use Goo Gone or some other citrus cleaner to remove the last of the adhesive. Have patience--give the solvent time to work because you don&amp;#039;t want to scratch the paint. Then, use a mild polishing compound like swirl mark eliminator (Meguiar&amp;#039;s ScratchX is a good one) to remove any minor scratches. To finish, use a cleaner wax to give the panel a consistent, shiny surface. I&amp;#039;ll Be Seein&amp;#039; Ya Bodywork primo and waxed? Now you need to pull off that faded, bubbled window tint. The side windows are easy--just get out a single-edge razor blade and scrape them clean. Not so the backlite. The silk-screened defroster grid is way too easy to damage. You might try using the hair dryer trick on it, but this polyester (not vinyl) film is probably too brittle to peel. Here&amp;#039;s a technique we learned from a local trim shop. Start by slitting open a large plastic trash bag into a single large panel--any color is fine. Spray a little water on the outside of the back window glass and use it to temporarily stick the bag to the window. Use your single-edge blade to cut the bag approximately 1 in. smaller than the glass. Add a couple of spoonfuls of household ammonia to your water sprayer and spray it on the tinting film. (The ammonia will stink--do this outdoors with the car doors open.) Use this to stick the bag to the film. If needed, add some more spray between the bag and the film to keep things wet and sticking. In about 20 minutes, the adhesive will have softened, and you should be able to peel off the tint more easily. Don&amp;#039;t scrape, not even with your credit card. Remove the remaining adhesive with a very soft cloth and more ammonia or Goo Gone. If you must rub the glass to lift off old adhesive, rub along the length of the heater grid conductors, not across them.  Tape stripes can be peeled back with the edge of a credit card. Painted stripes are tougher to deal with.  A Stripe Off Wheel will remove the most stubborn vinyl films, but large areas will take some time. Use a low-speed drill. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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