Clay bar won't help me - what now?

dxg · Post by **dxg** » Sat Oct 30, 2004 5:17 pm

OK - so my car is covered in tree sap. It's unavoidable due to the huge trees right behind my house.

I've just finished spending about 6 hours working on the car.

Wash, clay bar, glaze and wax.

Trouble is, although lots of "stuff" was coming off on the clay bar, none of the large blobs of sap would move. I tried pushing harder with the clay and "pulling" it across the lumps, but this just scratched the paint.

I tried autoglym "intensive tar remover" on them and nothing happened. Also tried turtle wax bug, tar and tree sap remover - again - no result.

So now they're safely waxed-in for the winter.

Am I doing something wrong, here? Does anyone have any ideas of how to shift tree sap? I'm gutted to have spent so long on the car (and it's only half way finished), for the underlying problem (the huge great lumps of tree sap all over the bonnet and roof) to remain unresolved. Infact, it now looks worse as these lumps show up really badly in the mirror-like finish surrounding them.

Absolutely gutted and at a loss for what to try next. One option is to book it into a bodyshop (for a few hundred quid - and to have it come back covered in swirl marks), but I would love to know if anyone has solved the problem before?

Deek.

des_pd_ tdi · Post by **des_pd_ tdi** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 9:03 am

You made sure that you covered the car with a soapy solution whilst using the clay bar, and continued to apply the solution?

I had this problem with a friends car. Basically we washed, then used Zymol HD clense, which effectively strips the wax from the car, we then clayed it and if required clayed again. Make sure you also continually mould the clay so that you try not to use the same patch all the time.

Once this was done apply the glaze, two layers of polish and job done.

Hope this helps

Des

dxg · Post by **dxg** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 10:06 pm

Well, I never did manage to get the tree sap off. But at least it's got a good waxing for the winter.

However - today the sun came out for the first time since I went through the exercise. Anyway, long story short - the glaze totally sorted the swirl marks part of the problem. Looks perfect now (in that regard).

Wouldn't have known about the stuff if it wasn't for this forum...

Took ages to track down a local factors that sold it, though...

Deek.