How to Remove Tree Sap Damages from Car Paint

Removing tree sap damage from car paint can be troublesome and sticky. What’s a tree sap? Tree Sap is very acidic. Tree sap occurs in two ways. One tree emits sap from the soil, from the trunk, and spreads through the leaves. The sap contains life-giving sugars that trees use to consume. 

Resin, on the other hand, is a somewhat different composition. This resin functions mostly as a defence against illness or insect attacks. Anyway, all of these excretions will create havoc on your paint, plastic trim, headlights and other things in your vehicle.

Initially, the tree sap or the resin would not harm the colour of the vehicle. Although these sticky products have several sugars and acids though, you can actually continue to feed on surfaces like transparent coats if you neglect them. When it does, it grays, contributes to blemishes or discolouration. Whatever you call this adherent substance, it is tough to extract it from your vehicle. A regular soap solution does not react well. If you leave it be, it’s going to turn dark and be much harder to remove.

Whether it is pine trees, palm trees, maple trees or orange trees, it does not matter – it is still a frustration to be addressed. It isn’t tricky to remove sap from your car, but it needs to be removed quickly. The longer you let it sit, the more difficult it is to remove. Read this article to ensure you understand how to correctly and quickly remove tree sap.

Is tree sap harmful to car paint?

Tree sap is a very sticky material that hardens until it falls to the surface of the vehicle. Leaving tree saps on the surface of your car’s paint can produce serious harm to the clear coat as well as to the paint layers below the surface.

Will tree sap come off in a car wash?

Tree sap is sugary and incredibly sticky. Meaning that you simply won’t cut it by spraying your car with cold water, as it does in fast, power-driven car washes. To extract some sticky, sweet material like that from your car, you will need warm water to melt the sugars.

How do you remove tree sap from a car without damaging the paint?

Step 1: Basic Car Wash

You first have to wash your car thoroughly. You shouldn’t miss this valuable step. It’s usually good practice to let nothing like tree sap or any other residue sit in your car for days. As you can damage the paint over time when leaving things like this on your car. 

Many of them can simply be taken away with warm water and soap. It can take dirt, grimness and sediment out of it when you wash your car thoroughly. If you’re trying to scrub the sap from your car before you wash it, you might ground the persistent dirt particles into the paint.

Step 2: Removing the Tree Sap from Car Paint

As typically hardened, clear or reddish raised areas, tree sap spots shall be visible. They may have started eating your car’s paint job for some time and can also be surrounded by areas of degradation typical for long-term hardened sap. You can get to the nitty-gritty of removal now that you know where the sap is.

Pour in clean clothes or terrycloths with a sap remover solution for several drops. You can also try rubbing alcohol if you do not want to buy a product. Place the sap cloth on the surface and press for at least 30 seconds to 1 minute on the area (the pressure will help the remover to soak into the sap).

After you allow the solution to work, you can start using some elbow grease to rub the sap away. Make sure you do this gently, or you will scatter the sap across the surface of your vehicle, causing a more severe problem. 

Suppose the sap is hardened and doesn’t come off. In that case, you can repeatedly soak the area with more solvent or rubbing alcohol, then manually rub it away until you’ve got rid of it all.

Step 3: Remove sap from your windshield/windows

If the sap is on your windshield or windows, remember: do not use your windshield wipers on a fresh sap! It’s just going to spread it around and leave you with messy stripes that are hard to remove. Instead, you should take the same steps as before. You may also use the box cutter blade to extract the toughest bits of sap from the bottle. Only be careful, as these blades are pretty sharp.

How to Prevent Tree Sap Damages on Your Car

Removing the tree sap can leave the spot dull, so you might want to polish the area with the car wax to bring back its original lustre. Prevention is the best solution. Protect the finish of your car by making sure it always has a fresh wax coat. The car paint finish is porous and will allow contaminants to seep inside. A fresh wax coat lasts a few months, depending on its exposure to the elements, how often you wash your car, and what kind of soap you’re using.

Another way to protect the finish of your car is to apply a seal to it. Besides wax, new products, such as ceramic coatings, seal the paint finish from contamination. Ceramic coatings may last a lot longer, but they need to be stripped off before they can be reworked when worn out. Waxes and sealers will just let the tree sap or any staining contaminant slip off the finish when the car is washed.

Finally, tree sap or stains should not dry up under the sun on the finish of the car. Try to rinse off the tree sap or contamination ASAP before it happens, because once it does, it will do permanent damage to your car’s finish. The only solution would be to sand it down, paint and finish the spot or the entire panel.