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  1. #1
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    Tree residue on car.

    Our Norway maple has a fungus that affects the leaves and they're dropping all over our car, leaving a weird residue. My husband took it to the car wash today and it didn't quite take it off. Any ideas on how to get it off without damaging the finish?

  2. #2
    Senior Dog Labradorks's Avatar
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    Ugh. Good luck. My VW was covered in it. Luckily I was able to get rid of it (the VW scandal) without dealing with cleaning it off (I tried everything) and get a new car. I hired someone to deal with the trees before I parked the new car in my driveway.

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  4. #3
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    My first car, I used a bug, tar and sap remover from the auto store. Recently the parking office used white vinegar to get stuff that dripped through the deck seams. I don't know if that will help with leaf residue but it did no damage to the paint or windows where they cleaned it off.

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  6. #4
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    Thanks. My husband went at it today with dish soap and a Dobie sponge. It got most of the rest off but you can still see some leaf outlines. So gross. We're short on options wrt where to avoiding the Norways. They are everywhere on everyone's property so I need to figure out what works.

  7. #5
    Senior Dog Jeff's Avatar
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    Well, sadly your making the issue worse. Dish soap strips all protection off the car. This is well known among car guys. You should never wash your car with dish soap. Being that you have it has stripped off any protection from your car which is going to make this worse. Car technology and protection of paint and so have changed quite drastically in the last decade or more.

    To remove what you have on there I would use Stoner Tarminator
    https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_s...d=6ZJ522TZQKXC

    If that doesn't work 3M makes an adhesive remover which is made specifically to remove the stickiest stuff on the planet from cars paint without damaging it. They should know, as they create some of the stickiest stuff on the planet. I have used it before and it works great. I removed the sticker front my new truck where the dealer put them on, you know the ones hey he bought this truck here at our dealership free advertising sort of thing. Comes right off with this stuff and not a mark on the paint.

    It doesn't have abrasives. However where your main problem is you have no protection on the car. Good protection and this isn't even an issue. Your paint probably has swirl marks and so on in it. I am assuming you use an automatic car wash. I would search for a good car detailer in your area. First have him fix your paint and then apply a ceramic coating. It might cost you $400-$500 but it is going to last you 3-4 years. You need to change your car washing habits though. No more car wash. However you won't need it. A high end soap and a two bucket wash once a month is all you will ever need to do to the outside of your car. Ceramic coatings are so slick nothing not even dirt sticks to them. Tar and tree saps just wipe off. And no not murphy's oil soap, I about spit out my coffee when I seen that. No, don't do this. Use a new car wash soap formulated for today's paints and coats. They are cheap though maybe a gallon of soap for $10 you put a couple cap fulls into a 5 gallon bucket. The soap should last you for a few years. There are even waterless washes now where you don't even need water to wash your car.

    If you don't want to go that route then look into a paint sealant. Again you still need to have your paint corrected but you need to have a sealant on there. Sealants are like waxes, however one coating last 6 months to a year.

    Waxes, forget waxing thats old school and doesn't help much and you have to reaply once a month. Plus waxes like Turtlewax have stuff in it to "Polish" your car. What those are are abrasives. for the people that don't know any better and like to think they are doing their car good.

    Just go out and look at your paint in the sun, this is an example, a mild example. See how there are swirls. Those are actually small scratches in the paint and swirls, this is what sap and so on sticks to. This is why it is so hard to remove.

    This is the same car after a detailer polished the paint and fixed it.

    Then you put a good coating like ceramic or a paint sealant and nothing will stick to the car for years.

    A cars paint should actually be a mirror like surface. Remember my new truck I got back in June. I took this photo the other day. It sits outside. Under a tree. All I did was hose it off with water. Nothing can stick to it. Most of the time a good rain is enough to wash it clean. You can go to automatic washes. Just you go to the brush less. You go to the ones that just hit you with high pressure water.



    Now days, keep cars clean and in mint condition is very easy. Its all about prevention. Most people don't think about it but aside from your house, your car is the second most expensive thing usually people own. Spend some time and money taking car of them and they will last forever. Inside and out. A lot of the new technology and chemistry out there and you really have to spend a lot less time taking car of your car. Oh and a lot of this can be used inside the house.

    A lot of people still use Rain X for windows. If you even know what rain X is. Which Rain X is crap anymore. It was fantastic when I was a kid, and at 16 I used it. However that was 30 some years ago. Things have changed a lot. Turtle wax, Rain X, all that stuff is just still around for the people that just can't change their ways. For example I use this system for my truck windows. I have yet to turn my wipers on all summer as water can't stick to the glass. I coated all my windows and sunroof. Not only that I coated my mirrors, inside and outside the house. I coated my Glass Shower. I coated all the windows, inside and out. Removing doggy nose prints is a snap they just wipe off. Best thing is it last a couple years on inside, a year on the windshield. There is a lot of advanced technology out there. However my point is, if you had the right protection on your car. You wouldn't care about the trees and any protection you had on your car has been removed by using dish soaps to wash it. Again this is what people did years ago. It was what I did with my first car. Dish soap, clean the car then put a nice new coat of wax on it. Yeah you just don't do that anymore.

    Glass system I use. Again you only have to do this every couple years. Ice, snow, water, nothing sticks to it. I even do my headlights.

    Keep it Simple Glass Care featuring McKees 37 - YouTube
    Last edited by Jeff; 09-18-2017 at 09:50 AM.

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  9. #6
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    Thank you Jeff. I'll get some of that Tarminator. Our cars are both 2004 but they are in really good shape and we'd like to keep them that way. Our mechanic has offered to buy them if we decide to buy new but we're not. It was nice to have a professional evaluation though.

  10. #7
    Best Friend Retriever outrag's Avatar
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    Vinegar and water can get off acid spots, at least on windshield. I agree with the other poster that using dawn, etc. will strip all protective wax, polish off the finish. Try it in a small discrete spot, and seal over it and see how it looks. If the car is bad, it usually involves a clay treatment, followed by by several decreasing grit rounds of polishing, followed by a sealant/wax.
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  12. #8
    Senior Dog Jeff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by janedoe View Post
    Thank you Jeff. I'll get some of that Tarminator. Our cars are both 2004 but they are in really good shape and we'd like to keep them that way. Our mechanic has offered to buy them if we decide to buy new but we're not. It was nice to have a professional evaluation though.
    I would have a detailer quote at least what it would take to do the exterior. A good detailer can usually restore them even that old back to near show room condition. Like outrag said as well, to get it back into condition, you probably need full paint decontamination, clay treatment and a lot of polishing while I know you and your husband aren't opposed to a little work, by the time you buy the stuff like clay, polishing compound, a good polisher and then the stuff to do a ceramic coating, your going to be in easily $400-500 for just the stuff, then you have to do the work. Which yeah the stuff would be enough to do both cars but your really only going to do them once every 3-5 years. Plus if you do not know exactly what your doing you could polish through your clear coat which then has to be repainted. Its one of those things it really is worth it to pay someone with a lot of experience to do. Your car will look like brand new.

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  14. #9
    Senior Dog JackK's Avatar
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    I second a good detailer! A good detailer will have the correct buffers for the job and most are pretty reasonable given the amount of work it takes to do it right.

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