Road tar, hardened tree sap and acidic bug splatter dissolved with the right solvent for each, lifted without scratching, then sealed.
Three things stick to GTA cars every summer and none of them come off in a car wash: road tar flicked up from fresh asphalt on the 401 and every resurfaced side street, sap dripping from the maples, lindens and pines that line the neighbourhoods, and the bug splatter from a drive up the 400 or Highway 11 to the cottage. Auto Royale removes all three at your home or office, without grinding them into the paint.
The reason they resist a wash is that they are not dirt; they are a petroleum, a sugar resin and a protein respectively, each needing a different solvent and a different amount of patience. Scrubbing any of them with a mitt scratches the clear coat with the contaminant itself. The method is to soften, lift, and then clean and protect the spot you have just exposed.
Tar shows up as hard black dots along the rocker panels, the lower doors and behind the wheels, usually after a stretch of road has been resurfaced or crack-sealed. It is asphalt binder, and it dissolves in a dedicated tar remover or a citrus-based solvent. We apply it, let it sit for a minute until the dots soften and run, and wipe with a soft towel, repeating on heavy build-up. Picking at tar with a fingernail or a plastic card leaves a scratch around every dot.
Sap is the one that does lasting damage if it waits. Fresh sap is sticky and wipes off with isopropyl alcohol or a sap remover; after a few days of sun on a Toronto driveway it hardens into a clear bead, and after a few weeks the acids in it begin to etch a ring into the clear coat beneath. We soften hardened sap with a solvent-soaked towel laid over the spot, give it time, and lift it rather than rub it. If an etch has started, light polishing removes the mark in most cases.
Parking under a mature maple or a linden in June and July is the usual cause. Pine and spruce sap is thicker and takes longer; honeydew from aphids on lindens is a fine sticky mist that coats the whole roof and is often mistaken for sap.
Bug remains are acidic and protein-based, and on a hot July day on the front bumper they bake on and start etching within hours. The fix is a bug remover or a mild enzyme solution and a wet microfibre towel left over the splatter for a few minutes to rehydrate it, then a wipe with a soft bug sponge. Mirror housings, the leading edge of the hood, the windshield base and the grille get the most attention. Scrubbing dry bugs is a reliable way to put fine scratches in the front of a car.
Solvents strip whatever wax or sealant was on the spot, and the paint around removed sap or bugs is often lightly etched or still holding residue. So we follow removal with a wash of the panel, a clay pass where the surface still feels rough, and a fresh layer of sealant or a spray coating, which does the most useful thing of all: it makes the next round of tar, sap and bugs release with a wash instead of a solvent. What we typically find on a summer car:
Typical time: About 30–60 minutes on top of a wash for a typical car; a roof full of hardened sap or a bumper caked with bugs can take longer.
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