Can you remove wear lines?
Quick answer: Not fully. Wear lines form where the hood folds or rubs on the frame; fibres get compressed/abraded, trap dirt and dry a different shade. A deep clean, repeated rinses, careful brushing to lift the nap, and fresh weather-proofing will lessen them, but if the fibres are scuffed or thinned the lines are permanent. Only a new hood removes them completely.
Wear marks are a problem with the texture of the roof, and so removing them would require restoring the texture.
They can be improved by using a lint remover, or even using heat to shrink back the stray fibres, but this is only a marginal improvement.
Re-weatherproofing the roof darkens the entire roof, making them less noticeable overall, but they still can be seen depending on how light is reflecting off the roof.
The photos show a hood before and after cleaning and re-weatherproofing. This hood was very clean, so wear marks weren't highlighted by dirt, however this is a mid-grey coloured hood and so fairly light in colour. (it is actually bi-colour, a mixture of black and white fibres). As you can see, our 2-year coating darkened this soft top considerably, helping to disguise the wear marks. This was done without recolouring.
If you still can't live with this, then a replacement roof is probably the best way to go.
Written by Danny Argent. Last updated 08/09/2025 16:06
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