Maple Tree Sap

[S&S Detailing]

I`ve got a detail in on the 14th of this month to remove some Maple tree sap from a ladies car. I went and looked at it last night, it`s not a soft sap (she washed the car and removed all the "big" stuff) and now there is a hard dark etching in the paint where the sap was. I tried using a solvent (Omni MS251 Multi-Purpose Solvent) to remove the sap with no luck at all! I read a thread that said to use isopropyl alcohol on sap. I am just covering my bases here making sure if this doesn`t work what will. Maybe a quick once over with a compound on a pad? Or is wet-sanding going to have to be involved here.



Oh and the car is about 20 days old!!!! She got it in early September and went down to visit a friend and parked under her tree, so it`s in `brand new` condition otherwise.



Thanks for your comments in advance, Adrian

[Alexshimshimhae]

I definitely would find it REALLY hard to swallow that sanding of any sort is going to be needed here...after tarminator, or basically any of the automotive tar remover/degreaser, or mineral spirits, I would maybe try ice cubes with plastic razor?



clay helped me alot...

my last resort was just compound/polishing off--but didn`t like to resort to that because ... well..if i had that much trouble taking it off...i figured there was a REALLY good chance that it was going to be stuck in my pads somewhere...

[S&S Detailing]

Has anyone used the isopropyl alcohol that I was talking about? I think I saw that it is available at Walgreen`s, just wanted to make sure it had a value for me buying it.

[VitoB]

I just detailed a car this past weekend that had tree sap stuck to it. I used straight 70% isopropyl alcohol and it removed the tree sap fairly easily. Spray it onto the tree sap, let it sit for a few seconds and then gently wipe it off with a MF towel.

[lee@glosshaus]

I`d get a nice hot, damp towel and lay it on the section you`re going to work for a few minutes. Then use IPA and gently rub it off with a MF towel. You`ll need to clay the car afterwards, and I`d consider a light polish (if it is that new it may well have "Dealer installed defects" (to borrow and bend a phrase from Mike Phillips).



If that won`t get it off, I`d get some Tarminator. Good thing to have handy anyway.

[S&S Detailing]

Did the car today, the IPA didn`t really do the trick, it took anything that was bulked on the car off, but there were "stains" in the paint where the sap sat. Clay bar was also not useful, found that the IPA was more useful than that. So I ended up just using a foam pad and some 3M perfect it rubbing compound and it took it off, was tough stuff though, I had to go over a few times with that process. Turned out good in the end though, customer was happy.

[wascallyrabbit]

you could look into get one of chemical decon kits for future encounters. fk and abc both make good decon kits. doing a honda pilot later this week or early next week and will be using the fk decon kit to remove sycamore tree sap and the regular build up of contaminates.

[gocubbies]

surf city garage road trip and grime remover is wonderful stuff. have used it many time to remove tree sap