Tree berry stains

[nylo]

Hi
I have a question about removing berry stains from your cars finish.

Unfortunately where I happen to have to park my car at home, there are these two trees that have been dropping berries on one side of my car. These berries when they break open they leave a sticky red ooze on my car which is hard to remove off the glass and doubly hard to remove off the finish. Problem is I wash the car and they leave behind these grayish stains on the black finish that I cannot get off.

Can anyone provide me any advice how to remove these stains? I've tried bug,tar and tree sap remover and a compound but nothing seems to work.
Will I need the assitance of a professional detailer?

thanks

[Tim Lingor]

Hey Nylo and Welcome to Meguiar's Online!!!

It sounds as though some of the juice of berry which could be acidic, may have etched into the paint. Can you please post a photo as to what the damage looks like?

Thanks

Tim

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Question?

Originally posted by nylo
Can anyone provide me any advice how to remove these stains? I've tried bug,tar and tree sap remover and a compound but nothing seems to work.

Hi nylo,

How are you applying the compound?

You might try this...

How to remove a defect by hand with ScratchX


Mike

p.s.

[nylo]

Re: Question

Believe it or not, the bird dropping etching in this link Mike posted is pretty much what the stains on my car look like. I will try to post a pic tomorrow

http://www.meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1516

[nylo]

Tree berry stains

Hi Guys
Here are some pics of the "berry stains" that I've been experiencing that I mentioned on a previous post. Any idea how to remove them?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v180/nylo1971/Image3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v180/nylo1971/IMAG0004.jpg

thanks

Rob
nyy23@rocketmail.com

[Mike Phillips]

Hi Rob,

Have you tried the ScratchX product I suggested in your original post?

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
Hi nylo,

How are you applying the compound?

You might try this...

How to remove a defect by hand with ScratchX


Mike

If you want to remove the defect by hand, this would by my first recommendation. If ScratchX doesn't remove it safely, or at least improve it greatly, then your next option would be to try a product from Meguiar's Professional Line and apply it with either a G-100, (PC), or a rotary buffer.

Mike

[Setec Astronomy]

First of all, those look pretty brutal, and the rest of the paint around the spots doesn't look to great, either. Sad to say, from the look of those berry stains, they have eaten through the paint, and you won't be able to do much about them. I have several bird-related spots on my car that are in similar shape.

If the rest of the finish is in good enough shape to make this worth it, you can try some polishing with something like ScratchX as Mike Phillips suggested, and follow with something like #7 Show Car Glaze to try to fill in the defect and restore some of the refractivity in that area...you'll really need to work that in. I have amazed myself on some not-so-bad bird spots that seemed to disappear after really working the #7 into them. Then of course follow with a good wax.

Moral of the story is keep a good layer of protectant on the car, don't park under that tree, use a cover, or clean the berries off as soon as possible (same for bird droppings). I know this stinks but until they make cars out of ****** frying pans we have to live with this.

[Tim Lingor]

Hey nylo,

I have merged your two threads together in order to avoid double posting.

Your pictures look as if the acidic juice has indeed etched the paint. Please follow Mike's advice about trying the ScratchX and see if that helps. It may take several applications. Some of the marks may be too deep and may not come out.

Good luck and please keep us posted!

Tim

[nylo]

Re: Tree berry stains

I'll take a try with the Scratch X.

Believe it or not, the paint is in good shape other than those "stains". I know those pics looks terrible but that is cause I use a cheap digital camera...

thanks for all your help

[Teak]

Another option is to try Medallion Premium Paint Cleaner on the berry juice spots.

As to Setec Astronomy mentioning your paint not looking great. I tend to agree, as the picture there appears to be cobweb swirls and car wash swirls. I guess it may not be up to some people obsessive level. Deal with one thing at a time, so lets take car of the berry juice first.

How long have the trees been dropping berries on the car?
How old are the spots?
What kind of vehicle?
Does it feel like anything sticky is left on the surface after washing?

Eric

[nylo]

Re: Tree berry stains

You can only see the swirls you speak of if look so close your nose is up against the car as I pretty much did when I took the pics, however;

The trees started dropping berries in the past month or so. But as soon as I see that it has occurred I was the car cause hosing off the car does nothing.

Most spots are only a few weeks old

Its a black 1995 Mazda MX6 LS

There is nothing sticky after the washing but if you glide your fingers across the finsih where the spots are, you can feel there is something there.

If you have any other questions that might help me out, just let me know and again guys, thanks


Rob
nyy23@rocketmail.com

[mirrorfinishman]

HI Rob,

I recently had two of my good customers, in different locations, experience a similar situation with berry trees. One customer has a brand new Mazda 3 and the other a Cadillac SUV. In both cases I was dealing with light colored vehicles and the stains were clearly a brownish red in color. I'm thinking that maybe the same type of tree stain could possibly show-up a little different on a dark colored vehicle such as yours. Anywho, here's the process that I used to get rid of those stubborn stains.

First I thoroughly washed the vehicle. Since I do all of my polishing and waxing by hand, I decided to use a 3M polishing pad, car wash soap and Meguiar's #2 Fine Cut Cleaner all applied by hand and while the vehicle was still wet. Yes, with the vehicle still wet, I simply added some car wash soap and #2 cleaner to the 3" X 5" piece of wet 3M polishing pad and began to work on those stains. I really didn't have to apply too much pressure, I really just let the cleaner do the work. I rewashed the vehicle after I removed all of the stains. This process did add about another hour to the complete detailing with each vehicle, but the results were well worth the effort. Hey, those stains were tuff.

Here are a couple of reasons why I went with the wet process. First of all, the 3M pad is really rather mild with regard to abrassiveness, especially when it's wet. The car wash soap when it's applied to the polishing pad actually acts as a lubricant. And believe it or not the #2 cleaner, when it's applied to a wet polishing pad, does a very good job by safely cutting through any surface contamination.

Since these stains were very difficult to remove I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND using any type of detailing product while the vehicle is dry. By doing it that way you would simply be wearing away at the surface until those stains are completely gone. That's not always a good idea. The key is not to get too aggressive and only go after the defects that are on the top surface of the vehicle. In this case, you mentioned that you could feel the stains, so it's easy to see that you certainly do not want to do anything that wears away at the finish below the surface. That is simply just not necessary.

In summary, it's a good idea to use the least aggressive methods first. That is always the safest approach with regard to removing surface contamination.

Rob, Are you located anywhere near Williamstown in the southern part of NJ?

[Teak]

Frank,
Good advice and interesting technique.

Nylo,
You could try using clay. Since you can feel the spots, the spots may be above surface defects.

Eric