Ok, my cars an 02 and the front badge is the biggest nightmare I've faced. Took forever to contort my wrist where I could cut the one way retainers off. After that it was fun with adhesive remover. I used wd-40 which worked well for the most part. After that they were still some fine white lines what would not come off. You can see them in the photo (left side of logo is the worst). I bought some "3M Shine Restorer" to polish up around and in the emblem area as I'm putting a emblem back on. I had made some scratched/hazy marks with a cuetip when removing the adhesive (cuetips are not as soft as they feel). This was supposed to be a fine swirl removal polish with carnuba wax. I thought it would have to be truely fine if it had a wax mixed in. Now I have some hazy places around the emblem and you can still see the emblem outline. I can live with the outline because the same emblems are going back on... but I can't live with the crappy looking scratches and haze. I hope whatever you recomend can be purchased localy from autoparts stores cause I really don't want to have to wait on ordered products. I wanted my car to be ready to go for the weekend. I should have known better than to try this because all my life paint of any sort hates me (finger paint included).

Note the bad haze just below the emblem mark slightly to the right.

 

looks like your cure might be some fine cut compound with the pc... follow that up with a swirl remover to bring back the gloss-

you have experienced the soft paint!

 

Nothing a good polishing won't cure.

 

I don't have a PC yet. What by hand polish could I get localy that would take care of this? Would scratchX do it?

 

ScratchX should work. It's a small area so it shouldn't take you long at all, even by hand. I recently removed the emblems on my g/f's AP1, and understand your frustration. The rear emblem was a piece of cake but I could not figure out how to cut the front emblem off to save my life. Eventually I just used a long screwdriver to pry it off the bumper--worked like a charm. Of course, I placed a MF towel between the screwdriver and bumper first

 

Before using an abrasive polish, I would recomment trying 3M adhsive remover. Mine came in a spray can. With it and some dental floss, I removed front and rear emblems with not problems. So before using abrasives, I would try to wipe the problem area down with this stuff.

 

I got most of the adhsive without problem... I used scratch X and it came out great. Thanks for all the advise! I can't wait to see the finished look with the emblems back on (sporting new color).