Kingham Decals In The Bin

I complained back in 2019 about the bonnet decals on my Kingham shrinking and looking unsightly. I missed the 2 year warranty by a month and AS refused to replace them at the time. As the months and years rolled on, nearly all of my decals followed suit and either out of laziness, or possibly it’s just that I stopped seeing them, but they have stayed on looking tatty.

I bit the bullet this morning and stripped the whole lot of them off, preferring the van to be plain, rather than scruffy. I’m going to live with it a while, before I decide whether or not to replace them, especially if I spend hundreds of pounds, to watch them shrink and fade again.

I don’t see other manufacturer’s decals fading so badly and my van has never been out of the UK, so doesn’t experience the extremes of sunshine and temperature that some do. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Wow!

I don't think I've ever seen an example that bad before on a six year old vehicle!

I have some on the WXL that are starting to look very faded and I am seriously thinking of just removing them, do you have a phot of the van now they have gone please

Looks absolutely fine without decals.

I’ve started polishing, as you could see where the paint was still brand new under the decals. The only bit that’s really apparent is above the front windscreen, where I haven’t polished yet.

Paulmold wrote:Looks absolutely fine without decals.

Thanks Paul, 

I’m really thinking that I won’t be replacing them.

I like the clean look very much, thank you, just got to convince the wife now

That looks very good, well done for taking the plunge … not without some trepidation I imagine. I’m interested to know how you removed them, whether they’ve left any visible marks on the bodywork and if so how well those have come off. Do please share.

I’m not a fan of decals and would much rather have a plain van. I particularly dislike the “eyebrow” decals on the raised sections above the windscreen of our 2020 van. They get the full force of the weather when driving and a lot of direct sunlight so I don’t see them lasting. I fail to see what value they add and if I was ordering a new build would insist that no decals were applied.

The first thing we did on ours was to remove the triangular mesh decals on the rear quarter side windows. They’re fitted to post 2020 PVCs and we took an instant dislike to them. They were already starting to peel off. I know it’s subjective but it seems crazy to spoil the clean lines of the automotive glass that sets AS vans apart from all others. They came off easily with gentle heat from a hairdryer and have left no obvious mark, except during the process of washing the windows. Once the glass is dry the marks disappear again.

On a related point, when I have a free moment I’m going to count how many times the AS logo features on the upholstery of our van. It’s gone completely bonkers!

Tim

Apologies, just noticed you’ve mentioned polishing. This is sounding like it might well be feasible.

Tim

Kemerton-bath wrote:That looks very good, well done for taking the plunge … not without some trepidation I imagine. I’m interested to know how you removed them, whether they’ve left any visible marks on the bodywork and if so how well those have come off. Do please share.

I’m not a fan of decals and would much rather have a plain van. I particularly dislike the “eyebrow” decals on the raised sections above the windscreen of our 2020 van. They get the full force of the weather when driving and a lot of direct sunlight so I don’t see them lasting. I fail to see what value they add and if I was ordering a new build would insist that no decals were applied………………………………………..

Thanks Tim, 

Gentle heat with a hairdryer and all but the “eyebrow” decals came straight off. Some left a very thin edge outline of what I can only describe as a build up of crud over the years. This was easily washed and polished out, without any trace of the decals having been there.

I decided to leave the three plastic oval AS badges in place and these had been added after the decals, so required a very careful trim with a craft knife.

The only difficulty was with the “eyebrows” !  They had deteriorated so badly, they had become brittle and did not peel off like the others. Working from stepladders, it took nearly as long to get those off, as the rest of the van together. Also, because they are on the front, the surrounding paint has taken 1000s of miles of damage, leaving it much duller than the newly exposed paint. Polishing has helped, but I can still see where that decal was, however not to the point where I’ll do anything about it.

Eyebrow……

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The decal-less van looks stunning 

I would have removed the AS ovals and used car badge tape and placed them in better positions, the more I look at the photos the more I like the clean look

Much nicer looking van without the decals.

K,

Thank you, that’s very helpful. You may have started a trend!

The “eyebrows” I mentioned on our van are the black pads above the windscreen, see picture below, though I can see why you refer to yours in the same way. Ours are Groucho Marxesque and we really don’t like them so they’re coming off over the summer in light of your experience. Will most likely remove the bonnet decals too having seen how yours deteriorated. I’m know I’m sad but but the small indentation in the centre of the bonnet decal irritates slightly … it’s designed to accommodate the Peugeot badge but hasn’t been modified for the badge-less Fiat, which I think is lazy design!

We’ll keep the go faster stripes on the sides for now and see how they hold up over time, 

Further to my comment about interior branding, I’ve since counted 10 AS brand logos inside the van. Never mind, it might prove handy feature if and when memory loss starts to affect us!

Thanks again Kingham for being the pathfinder.

Tim

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It is funny that this topic has come up because I was thinking about the decals on my van only the other day. As a rule I don’t like decals. My first Discovery in 1990 was delivered with decals despite the fact that my written order specified that they should be omitted. LR removed them after a stiff letter.

I was only this morning admiring a German registered VW Crafter conversion parked outside Alnwick Castle. Not sure whose conversion it was: there was absolutely nothing to tell me! It looked very good.

If there is a trend developing then obviously it is better to get on with ripping yours off. The longer they stay on the harder they are to remove and the more the UV exposure, hence paintwork will differ more as time goes by.

As I said before I think it looks great but........

To get a van registered as a motor caravan  (eg home conversion) one of dvla rules is that it must have decals that would recognise it as a campervan. I wonder if they are bothered about the reverse happening after registration.

Quote from regulations..."

• motor caravan-style graphics on both sides of the vehicle"
  
  

Interesting point Paul, I had no idea. If challenged I would think just the Autosleeper lettering would be sufficient to meet DVLA rules, but maybe I’m being too logical. As you say, I doubt whether the authorities would be interested after registration.

You’d think that clearly visible features like fridge vents, water fill points, TV antenna, etc would be sufficient cues that it’s not a builder’s van!

Tim

This is the reason they give....

"DVLA is required to record vehicle details for road safety and law enforcement. The body type information held on the vehicle record must describe what a vehicle looks like in traffic. This description, as well as other distinguishing features, allows the police and other enforcement agencies to easily identify vehicles."


Why they need to know I haven't a clue.

Whilst mine has the make and model in a small font on the back door, the only decal is the compass which I don’t think screams “motor caravan”. It looks more like something Ordnance Survey might use. 
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This was around 10 years ago but I’ve done 2 self build campers, the second one at the time the reason shown by Paul above was a hot topic on the VW forum.
I submitted plenty of photos to the DVLA while getting both vans registered as a Motor Caravan, neither had a single graphic/decal and both were re-registered without problem.
I realise this is possibly not much help when the cops pull you over tomorrow but personally if I removed my own decals I wouldn’t worry too much.

Satisfying DVLA requirements to get a conversion registered as so is one matter, however, removing decals at a later date, will never be a police matter. 

There is no offence of ‘driving without decals’ and DVLA do not hold a record of what my van decals looked like at the time it was registered. 
DVLA can’t even get the basic information correct, as their records and my V5 show my gold coloured van as being brown coloured. I tried several times to correct this with them, as it is clearly not brown, but they claimed that their system would not accept a metallic colour ( Gold, Silver, Bronze etc) This was actually outdated and incorrect information, as metallic colours are commonly found as base colours on V5 documents.

I lost the will to live and gave up trying to convince them years ago 

My “cops pulling you over” comment was very tongue in cheek, of course they are not going to give a hoot about the decals 
I agree with you about the DVLA though. The second van I did was more of a day van and was missing several big requirements from their list. I sent the documents, photos etc.. more in hope expecting a flat rejection.
The new V5 came back 2 weeks later registered as a Motor Caravan.