WTBIS350

Hey everybody,

Posted this on another forum, but i copied and pasted it on here too.

The house we are renting right now has a big tree in the front yard, and over the part 2-3 months it has been covering our cars in tree sap.

The size of each 'droplet' is small...take a pin, dip it in some oil or ink and touch a piece of metal or something and thats how big each drop is. BUT there are lots of them...take an area about the size of a dollar bill and now imagine there are about 200 or so of these tiny dots all evenly distributed over that small space. Now imagine this covers every side of the car and we have 4 cars.

My first question is since we are renting here, what kind of action (if any) can we take vs the landlord or the city? can we get them to cut the tree down? can we get reimbursed for any detailing work that has to be done? OR can we just go directly to the city and bring this issue up with them? have the city cut the tree down, or reimburse us for the cost of detailing the cars? We have a 2 car garage so one could argue that at least 2 of the cars should have been sheltered which would put the fault on us for using the garage as storage. But that still leaves the other two cars getting sapped on all the time.

My other question was about my car. I had gotten it clay bar and waxed and it looks a lot better now. We were going to move out this weekend but our move out date has been extended to a week and a half from now. Even after one night of parking in the driveway i can already see some sap back on the surface. What are my options on dealing with this over the next 1-2 weeks? i was thinking automatic car wash and the brush would be enough to keep the sap from getting too hardened or stuck to the surface. I think we have a car cover, but i would prefer not using one. And if the car wash doesnt take it off, i may end up having to do the clay bar and wax again (unless i can find or buy a car cover).

I wouldnt be worried about this normally, but since we have 4 cars total, one of the cars is my IS350 (white) and another is brand new under 2 months of ownership (silver). The last 2 cars are a mitsu diamante and a durango 20?? on both, but those arent too big of a deal.

let me know what you guys think

PondScum

I'm going to work backwards here, since I think this last step is actually the most important to avoid future damage: get a good layer of durable sealant, or a coating on the paint. This way the sap won't adhere as well to the car, and it will be easier to remove, meaning less chance of damaging the paint when you remove the sap. I've actually seen mechanical sap removal (claying) take paint off with it because it had adhered so well to the paint (part of the problem was crappy paint from the factory), so you want to do everything you can to prevent the sap from adhering to the paint. Since your wax doesn't seem to be doing this, I recommend a change in LSPs.

Given my experience with sap adhering to paint, I'd actually try chemicals first, unless you'd already tested and determined you can safely take the sap off with claying. Start with Stoner's tarminator, and move up to Goo-gone if needed. Then prep the paint the usual way and apply a good sealant or coating.

zmcgovern4

iTrader: (2)

Tarminator or Tar X (solvent based products) should remove the sap with no problem... test in an inconspicuous area prior to covering the entire care with it though and DO NOT let the products dry on the car.

Perhaps most importantly... NEVER USE THE GOD AWFUL BRUSH AT THE AUTOMATIC CAR WASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is all. Thanks.