Below is a video giving tips for how to remove tree sap from car paint.
This guy is a professional car detailer, and he uses lacquer thinner to remove the tree sap.
He cautions that you must be very careful when you use lacquer thinner not to keep it on very long, because it will damage your car's clear coat finish.
Further, if you don't have lacquer thinner, or don't want to use it on your vehicle, he also suggested the automotive versions of Goof Off or Goo Gone, and said isopropyl alcohol may also work, but will take longer.
Below is a video showing the techniques for removing tree sap from cars with a razor.
Personally, that seems like a really scary way to remove the sap because he even cautions that you can easily scrape and damage the paint on the car if you aren't careful.
He is a professional car detailer, and he says he uses this razor technique on sap that has been sitting for a long time in the sun and has gotten really hard.
He says he is demonstrating the technique on a car with a $30,000 paint job, so I assume he is pretty confident he won't hurt the paint.
He does bend the razor, however, to help him be more precise (it is hard to explain -- watch the video to understand how), so maybe that helps him.
After scraping off the top of the tree sap he says then it becomes weak, and you can remove the rest of it with a cleaner or polish.
by Linda Martin
(Folsom, CA)
Linda shared two methods for removing tree sap on cars.
by Allan
(Grand Lake CO, Tucson AZ)
I own a new car that has a black paint, clear coat. I'm very careful with the car, but it shares the garage with my wood working tools, so from time to time it has to spend a few days in the driveway.
I have tried all manufacturers products and have found nothing is as good as the free tool everyone has available. What I'm talking about is a plain old ice cube.
Usually I take a glass of cold water, add 4 or 5 large cubes, move the car out of sun- generally just pull into the garage, grab a cube and move it across the warm finish of the car. The coldness of the ice solidifies the sap for just a few seconds while the hardness of the cube knocks the sap off.
Once I had a used car that I wanted to detail up before selling, unfortunately for me it had been parked under trees for over a year- quite a mess. Detail shops wanted a small fortune to clean the sap off as it was everywhere and was sun baked on. I didn't have the budget, so I tried a variety of products, nothing worked as well as an ice cube.
Try washing the car first to remove dirt and contaminants that will scratch the finish. Towel dry, let the finish warm up for a few minutes. Now pull inside, take a large ice cube, apply slight pressure. The cube will soon be flat on the surface where it contacts the paint, a small puddle forms, rub through the wet area, across sap a few times- sap gone!
Depending on the amount of sap, and the size of a panel, a cube often will clean a fairly large panel. Hope this helps.
Photo courtesy of Muffet
by Cheyenne
(Banning, CA)
by Rich
(Denver)
Below is a video from a professional car detailer saying how to remove tree sap on car paint.
Basically, his advice is quite simple -- use tree sap remover (see some suggested products down at the bottom of the page).
There are other methods out there for removing tree sap from a car, such as a razor, or other chemicals, but he suggests against them, which is actually in contradiction to the video directly above.
I think the obvious reason for the disagreement is whether you believe you can actually control the razor to have it work for you, or if you think you will chip your paint using this method. I tend to think I, personally, would be better off not using such a sharp instrument near my car's paint job.
Instead, using a product designed specifically to remove sap from your car's paint will make the process quick and easy.
Also, when you use a product specifically designed for a car's painted finish you don't have to worry about scraping and nicking the paint like you would with a razor, or hurting the finish of your paint like with other chemicals.
Here is the video for full details:
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Hi, I'm Taylor, a busy mom with 3 kids, so I have lots of hands on experience with house cleaning, laundry and my fair share of spots, spills and other messy catastrophes. Thanks for visiting my site.
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