It’s that time of the year where you have to finally stop binge watching every episode of The Office and finally get in touch with nature.
You call your friends and see if they want to go on that hike you have been talking about for ages, and when you get there you find some nice parking under a tree so that your car isn’t soaking in the sun.
You talk and reminisce with your friends, mostly about The Office, on the way to the top. After a long and exhausting hike you come down to your car to see it’s riddled with tree sap and the wax you got done from the local car detailing place is all gone, so what do you do?
You let it be, you grab dinner with your friends and forgot about the tree sap until the next morning and see that not only is it in more places than you thought, it started to thin out onto the paint.
Ps, be careful to protect your car paint from sun damage as well, damage caused by the sun to your car can be incredibly expense and hard to repair but you can easily prevent it by following our guide!
Why Is Tree Sap Stuck To My Car?
It’s monday so you don’t have time to take it to the car detailing shop right before work, so you take it to the carwash instead.
If you know anything about tree sap, you can’t pressure wash all of it off, unless you want to take some paint off with it.
So,after work, you do what your uncle taught you when you were seven helping detail his car, you grab a jerry can and start rubbing the tree sap off with a microfiber towel and some diesel…. Hurrary!
Your car has no more tree sap, good as new right? Wrong! You just made three critical mistakes.
The first being that you didn’t talk to a professional auto detailing expert, however if your reading this car detailing blog, you’re already ahead of the rest!
The second would be that you let the tree sap remain onto the vehicle for to long of a period, we’ll talk more about how damaging something like that can be ahead in the blog.
Third, and this is the reason you are here most likely, is the proper removal of tree sap off of a vehicles paint, because anyone who has been car detailing for even the shortest time should be able to explain that diesel does a lot more harm than good.
Removing Tree Sap From Car Paint
Far too few people truly know how to remove tree sap, so let’s get into it. When handling this issue as auto detailing technicians we recommend you start cleaning up as soon as you see the sap on your paint as soon as possible.
If you allow the tree sap to sit on your car for too long you risk the water evaporating from the sap leaving behind sticky debris, which can in turn absorb other hazardous contaminants that eat away at the clearcoat.
In order to loosen the sap off your vehicle make sure you use warm water or ensure your car detailing shop is doing so, as to really soften the sap, not just simply be hosed off with cold water from the car wash causing sometimes deep scratches.
If you just got back from your hike and the sap hasn’t solidified yet, your in luck, a quick hot water car wash can do just the trick! However if your hike involved a full course meal afterwards, you may have some work ahead of you.
If that’s the case, then a hot water car wash is still necessary but you should follow it up quickly afterwards with an auto detailing spray and a microfiber towel.
Allow the detail spray to soak on top of the sap and then go on afterwards with the towel and remove all the remains in a circular motion.
You may need to do this method multiple times before you get all the contaminants off. Make sure you use a recommended car detailing wax to protect the area where the sap once was.
Be sure to ensure your car is at room temperature and has not been basking in the sun before performing any tree sap removal. Parking your car in the direct sunlight is also a sure way to get yourself some paint damage in the future.
This excellent video from Chris fix will help show you the best possible way to remove tree sap from car paint, we do not recommend veering away from any of the steps laid out and we highly recommend visiting a Calgary car detailing shop or fleet detailing Calgary instead.
Supplies For Tree Sap Removal
Now that you know what to do, all that’s left is for you to gather the following supplies and get to work! :
- Bucket
- Warm Water
- Auto Detailing Spray
- Microfiber Towels
- Wax
Good luck on your project, and let us know how it went! For more tips and advice on how to properly detail your car make sure you follow the DripDetailing blog!
