Replacing Malaysian road tax without damaging your windscreen.

I believe I’m not the only one that doesn’t like the current Malaysian road tax. The old design was perfectly fine so I don’t know why they did away with it.

The current one looks better I guess and has its own adhesive for sticking onto a windscreen. HOWEVER, nobody warns that removing it would be a pain in the arse.

After a year in the sun, removal of the road tax would mean that it disintegrates with ugly glue marks left behind on the windscreen. In fact when you google Malaysia road tax, you’d be inundated with pictures of tragic road tax removal. Such as these:

# – Tragic 1.

# – Tragic 2.

I know people who just don’t remove an expired road tax at all, because it’s too much hassle. So they just slap on the new one right next to the old one and eventually have 1/2 of their windscreen covered in road taxes. My dad is one such person lol.

After a while, I realised that auto accessories shops like Brother or Eneos do sell plain car stickers for cradling road tax. They also have ones with branding on them but I just prefer plain, transparent ones.

# – Plain car stickers for cradling road tax.

All you have to do is laminate the road tax at a bookshop, put it on top of the plain sticker, then stick it onto the windscreen. Hence, there will be no adhesive contact with your windscreen at all.

# – Laminated road tax.

That said, because I’m so lazy and stingy, I decided that paying RM2.50 to laminate the road tax every year is a bit too steep to pay. Also, it’s such a pain to find parking near my neighbourhood book shop and the girl that works there is one of the slowest people I know exist.

So I came up with a brilliant idea, of which is the point of this blog post:

Ladies and gentleman…clingwrap film! One of the most common item in one’s household hehehe.

# – Roll out some clingwrap film. Using a cloth or paper towel, smooth it down over the surface of a table.

# – Carefully peel off the road tax.

# – Stick it on top of the clingwrap film.

# – Now, lift the clingwrap film off the table.

# – Trim off excess film around the road tax with a scissors.

# – Fold in excess film around the road tax.

# – Clingwrapped road tax, DONE!

# – Now, just slip the clingwrapped road tax into the car sticker and onto the windscreen.

# – Replacing Malaysian road tax without damaging your windscreen, DONE!

And that, ladies & gentlemen, is how Kim sees it.

31 thoughts on “Replacing Malaysian road tax without damaging your windscreen.”

        1. actually, i don’t trust anyone other than myself with my road tax. once the book shop girl almost tore it into half i was like wtffff. but i guess your mechanic is used to it haha

  1. Maybe it’s just me, but I found that using a little water, the road tax and the remnant glue comes off easily from my wind screen

  2. Girl, better not to remove and keep sticking new ones as this is also a way to prevent car theft.The thief would not drive away a car that can be easily identified with all its r/tax sticker giving away the original car no. plate.

  3. If you have gum residue, spray some WD-40 and gently rub it off, then gently (again) wipe the area with turpentine.

  4. I use alcohol in my research, so one year, I tried using alcohol to remove the remnant glue on the windscreen. It worked, so I’m assuming maybe nail polish remover or even toner will do the job too?

    Somebody told me that we shouldn’t place “anything” between the road tax and the windscreen, but I didn’t bother. I place my road tax on a piece of transparency (the ones lecturers used in uni a few years ago before somebody discovered PowerPoint, LOL) and use a car sticker to hold it in place.

    Your cling wrap solution is more readily-available since not many people have leftover transparencies at home :) Good thinking! :D

  5. Great tip! Not only road tax stickers are a pain, but also security stickers for condos, companies and schools too! It’s about time a new technology was developed.

  6. lols. . . .been doing that for ages. Tough job but easier to remove yearly. I uses book wrappers with adhesive. The adhesive part sticks to the windscreen with the road tax stick to the wrapper. . . .

  7. Wow, thank you for coming up with such idea! I’ve never even thought about it. My Mom had to always ask an acquaintance to use a special solution to remove any traces of the adhesive tape. I wonder if it’s possible to use cellophane tape instead of the transparent car sticker?

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