| The airbag stickers on the STi are much more difficult to obliterate than the 2.5RS stickers. Removing them cleanly is difficult. This article tells you not how to remove them cleanly, but how to remove them with extreme prejudice. Scoobymods shows you how to cleanly spraypaint over the eyesore. This is a very tidy way to fix your visor, but it has one major drawback. You know that sticker is still there on your visor. It's just covered up. |
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That's not acceptable to those of us who abhor the thought of a nanny sticker on our high performance automobile. Another solution would be to find and mount an old visor from a GC8 that either never had a sticker, or had the sticker cleanly removed. The old visor is somewhat smaller than the new visor, but it appears the STi uses the same mounting points.
The airbag stickers are made from thin plastic that's glued directly to the visor. Unlike in the 2.5RS, the glue makes it impossible to simply rip or cut the sticker off. It can be neatly chipped away -- if you have a few hundred hours to spare. Check out the photo showing a razor blade chipping away at the sticker. |
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The Dremel tool seemed to be the next best option. The grinding stone wiped out the sticker, inch by inch. Be sure to wear goggles when doing this, otherwise hot plastic will fly up into your eyes. Don't ask me how I know this. |
| Use very light pressure, moving side by side as you grind the sticker down to a grey color. Start with the low speed setting until you get the hang of it. Once you're comfortable, high speed is the way to go. Use the low speed setting for fine detail. |
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| If the tool ever snags, immediately pull up and turn it off. If you allow the tool tip to grab, it will puncture the visor, as you can see in this photo toward the bottom, slightly left. Be careful, and it won't happen to you. Also, work very carefully around the edges. It's easy to go off course and come out with something that looks like a 2 year old trying to color in between the lines. You can see this in the final photo -- be careful, and it won't happen to you. |
| I used the sanding tip to smooth out the ridges in the former sticker area. This worked, but made that part of the visor a lighter, almost white, shade of grey. Look at the dremel in this photo. Just a tiny bit below it is an unsanded area. It's not as smooth. |
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The final result is not entirely satisfactory. You can still see, below, where the sticker used to be. It's not perfectly smooth. It doesn't look so good. Still, it's better than looking at a ridiculous sticker. Curse the evil lawyers who made this mutilation necessary.
