Hoover Fridge - Unremovable stickers!

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MrX

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Apr 16, 2005
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I am a little annoyed with this.
Against my better judgement, I purchased a black Hoover undercounter fridge as extra storage space to go in my home office.

I needed a dark colour to fit into the colour scheme and wasn't looking for anything particularly fancy. It just needs to be able to hold some milk etc for the nespresso machine

When I opened the packaging, the fridge had three large stickers on the front advertising the 5-year parts guarantee and something about the rubber seal being removable and another pointing out that you had to fit the handle.

The handle one was very intelligently printed in black print on a clear sticker which was then stuck to a black fridge - i.e. completely illegible as it was black print on a black background.

I tried removing the stickers and the shiny, glossy plastic layer came away leaving the paper behind.

I then tried removing them with a damp cloth, and it did nothing.

Eventually, I resorted to using CIF (JIF) cleaner which is mildly abrasive and the scrubber side of a sponge suitable for cleaning non-stick cookware. With a lot of patience and gentle scrubbing it removed the sticker without trace.

However, it's absolutely ridiculous that a manufacturer would put a really sticky and difficult to remove sticker right on the front of an appliance like that. What were they thinking (or not thinking) ?

Our Samsung fridge-freezer (side by side unit) was entirely covered in a kind of blue plastic wrap to avoid any damage to the paintwork, yet this Hoover machine actually came with the damage already done!

While I may have been very careful taking the sticker off, I'm sure there are plenty of other people who might have tried removing it with a scraper or some kind of sharp implement and I have no doubts that that would end up with the machine being returned and a big show down with the retailer.

If I couldn't have removed the sticker easily, I was going to return the fridge too.

Do any other companies do this? Or are Hoover unique in their desire to encourage as many returns as possible?
 
WD-40

I know many people swear by Goo Gone, but what retail stores use is WD-40. It gets sticker residue off without trace, and almost never harms a plastic surface. Goo Gone reacts with some plastics, leaving a dull patch.

A bit of Windex and a paper towel removes the slight oiliness left by the WD-40.
 
We shouldn't have to resort to those kinds of measures though.

I mean, imagine if your car arrived with a large sticker on the bonnet/hood or across all the doors?!

I'd imagine most people would be absolutely furious.

...

You can use those thin, plastic 'static cling' stickers that work extremely well on smooth surfaces like appliances or glass doors.

You could also just produce a cool looking fridge magnet which might actually be useful or might be used somewhere else.

I'd love a nice retro looking Hoover logo on a fridge magnet.
 
I Quite Agree....

....But the reality is that manufacturers nowadays do not employ people capable of actual thought. I am a design, architecture and film writer, and I see more bad, stupid and dangerous design than you can shake a stick at.

It does not help that so much manufacturing is outsourced to nations specializing in copying American and European products. You end up with things that look like what you're used to, but which don't actually work properly. Try buying Chinese-made nail clippers or can openers sometime, and you'll see what I mean.
 
+1 on WD-40

Adhesive removal is something WD-40 does well, unlike lubrication (which it was NEVER designed to be...). Kerosene or mineral spirits will remove non-water soluble sticker adhesive in a second. And as Sandy mentioned some of the move active products like Goo Gone or Goof Off (or MEK, Lacquer Thinner , Acetone etc) will harm many plastics and paint, beware.

Stickers no longer phase me. Start out with a hair dryer to warm them a bit and they should peel away pretty clean. A bit of a light solvent and you are done! As with the rules of cleaning ALWAYS start with the least reactive solvent first and work up from there. Anything abrasive should be the last resort and the need for abrasives only shows you don't have the right solvent...

I used to work in a shop where we painted motorcycles. Most of the graphics on modern bikes are stickers that all had to be removed prior to painting them. Some of the ones that had been on for years didn't want to come off but they did. The worse were the stickers on the fuel tanks, they are typically clear coated over. You have to sand off the paint, heat up and pull the sticker, remove the adhesive then wet sand the tank for paint! All in a days work :)
 
Sticky stickers

My Beko fridge-freezer was supplied with the usual "advertising" nonsense stuck firmly to the doors. The stickers, as usual, seemed to be fixed on with superglue. I too tried a gentle approach (Fairy Liquid) which failed to shift them.

I also eventually resorted to Cif (Jif) cream cleaner, with the gentle nylon scourer side of a two-sided sponge. Anyway, under certain lighting conditions I can still see a shadow where the stickers adhered.

I don't know what happened to the "easy-peel" stickers that some manufacturers used. They are probably are too expensive to make now.
 
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