I am thinking about plasti-dipping the emblems on my 4Runner (back hatch, sides, front emblem).
I am curious, what is the best way to do this?
I have seen videos where people have used a heat gun, dental floss, etc to remove the emblems, plasti-dip them, and then put them back on. But then, I have seen videos where people taped off an area around an emblem on their vehicle, sprayed the pasti-dip straight on the vehicle and once dried, they peeled off the extra plasti-dip around the emblem.

Which do you prefer, and why?

I just did almost all of them the past month and I did both methods, I did goo gone soak on an emblem on back hatch and then fishing wire on it and it snapped part of the emblem but I glued it back together, the taping method is preferred to me by just some masking tape and then butchers paper and the finishing touch of tooth picks and it turned out good and hasn’t washed off

I plasti-dipped my badges, the front grill, and the rear piece just over the tailgate latch, all while still attached to the vehicle. Plastidip is nice because you don't have to worry about taping too much and Is why I chose to leave them on. If you remove entirely, then maybe go ahead and paint and clear coat for protection

I have some pictures that I can attach later when I get home. I loosely taped off the area around the badge, but don't worry about getting too close with the tape because the extra will come off easily (it will make sense later and with the pics). Use some newspaper as masking around the entire area to prevent overspray, and just go at it with like 5-7 coats. I think I waited 30mins-1hr between coats on a cool-warmish day.

After spraying, I would recommend waiting a while before peeling back the surrounding bits of plastidip. I removed the extra bits on half of the badges about 3 hours after my last coat and then came back the next day to remove the rest of the extra bits - complete night and day difference. After sitting for a while it sticks together much better and the extra can be removed as one piece instead of a bunch of little stringy bits. Use a toothpick or something wooden to remove the extra inside the letters.

edit: so apparently the pictures I have aren't as good as I thought. Could have sworn I had some pics of it all masked off, but apparently not.

Probably the best one I have of the tape. This is before anything real happened and you can see how I did the tape. I might ever suggest leaving a bigger gap around the letters to make peeling easier.


After spraying down the letters. Plastidip kinda has some orange peel, which I don't mind too much. One thing to note is that it doesn't seem to feel dry for like 2 days, but give it time and it will harden up.


Overall back shot. At first the trim piece over the rear handle was giving me moustache vibes, but I eventually got over it and like it better than colormatched. I plasti-dipped over the Toyota logo and then peeled that off. On the front it was easy enough to remove and then reinstall.


This is how the front turned out. Just masked around grill and bumper and put some newspaper behind the grill

Really depends on how much effort you want to put in.

Sure, leaving them on and taping the surrounding areas will get the job done and it's easy to remove the excess patches. However, you'd be quite surprised how much over spray you'll have even if you tapped 6 inches around every side, and overspray is a pain to get off bc it's a bunch of tiny specs and not one piece that comes off together. This is what I did the first time around and I found myself looking at it in detail and noticing a lot of imperfections

Taking them off is a much more clean job, just require more time and effort. IF you're going to take them off, I'd say just sand them down, get you some paint and clear coat them. Going through the effort to remove them, you might as well paint them so they don't fade like Plasti Dip will, and you wont have to repeat the job.

I’ve used PD quite a few times to get rid of annoying chrome. If you take the emblems off, just use paint.

I leave the emblems on. I get a trash bag, cut a side seam and the bottom seam to make it a large drop cloth, and then cut out the area(s) I want to dip. If it’s the grille, I stuff newspaper behind the whole grille to prevent coating the radiator and stuff.

If you’ve got a large enough area around the emblem, you don’t have to worry about overspray. Give it a good 3” all the way around the area so you’ve got something to grab. Wet coats after the first tack coat. The more coats, the easier it peels. The big mistake is stopping once it “looks good” and not when it’s thick enough to peel easily. If it comes off in tiny pieces, you need more coats. It’ll only be worse later. There’s some discretion needed here. You’re not going to put 12 coats, but 3 ain’t going to cut it even though you’ll have fully coverage at that point.

I’ve got the same dip on my emblems for 3 years now with no problems. I have some chips where I blacked out the lower bumper in the center, but that’s an obvious area to get those.

Edit: the dipyourcar YouTube channel has all the legitimate tutorials to actually get it done well.

I’d did the badges, rear license plate and grille on my 3rd Gen. Used newspaper, masking tape and a few toothpicks. Just takes some time and patience. Came out great. I think for my 4th Gen though I’ll be debadging it, not a fan of these Wild West badges...


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Thanks for all of your input.

How long does Plasti-Dip last when putting it on your emblems? Do you need to avoid car washes, leaving it in the direct sunlight during the Summer, etc?

I am almost leaning towards the removal of the emblems, paint them with a flat black spray paint, spray them with a clear coat type spray, then reattach them to the Runner. It seems like a lengthy process, but I assume it would be worth it, the paint/clear coat would last longer, and it would be interesting to see the Runner without any emblems for a few days.

Mine is debadged. Looks 100 times better than plastidipped emblems or emblems in any color that that matter. Check out my instagram @That_Titanium_4RNR for pics

If you think you might like a debadged look, I’d pull the emblems. If you happen to like it, you just finish cleaning and you’re done. If you don’t, then you should just paint and clear them.

In terms of how to care for dipped emblems: I do absolutely nothing. After 3 years, it’s about time to redo them for me. Spent less than an hour on it the weekend I bought the 4runner and haven’t given them another thought until this posting honestly.