How to Remove Pine Tar/Sap from a Car?

Try denatured alcohol or mineral spirits, applied with a soft cloth (like an old tee shirt). With minimal rubbing, the pine tar should wipe right off.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just my $0.02

If you want to be more anal, use a microfiber cloth.

Start with dabbing to loosen the tar/sap, then wipe when it is dissolved.

Mineral spirits is OK. I doubt the alcohol will do much. Toluene would be better than mineral spirits, but it may also attack the car finish. The OTC "tar remover" products for cars are primarily toluene, if I remember correctly. Read the labels or check the CAS number codes on the OTC tar remover bottles.

You could use Eucalyptus oil, on a cloth, let tar/sap soften before buffing off.

Works for me just fine, on any resinous tree sap,on any car, including Toyotas....

DMSO has been said to work. Also, common vegetable oil should take it into solution and then remove the residue with a detergent wash.

WD 40 works great doesn hurt the paint or you could go to Autozone and get bug and tar remover at twice the price..

Yeah I forgot about that and it's a little faster than a heavier oil. Of course you could just as well use diesel fuel, which is not much different from WD40 and it's even cheaper though not in a convenient aerosol. You could put it in a pump sprayer.

Mineral oil / baby oil works well to get tar off hands have never tried it on a car though.

chazl

Any one of a number of organic solvents will do the job. I believe the one most often packaged and sold in stores in primarily a kerosene base.

3M makes a product called:

General Purpose Adhesive Cleaner Part# 08984

I've used it since the test marketing (1975) with GREAT success on all surfaces (except cheap plastics) with the first use on a metallic copper paint on a Mazda to remove some enormous racing decals and 10 years later, there was NO sign of their existance.

I can't recomend this product any higher!!!

This may sound ridiculous but I saw on an import/tuner car website that a quick and dirty fix for this is to use PEANUT BUTTER. YES, PEANUT BUTTER. I thought this was ridiculuous myself so I tried it on some nasty, old, hard tar and IT WORKED.

I also tried it on some tree sap and it worked as well but with a little more elbow grease.

Try it. You will be surprised. By the way I used Jiffy.

Good Luck

chunky or smooth?

Paraffin to get it moving, followed by washing up liquid in water?

I think you still would need something to get the paraffin more fluid. I have had success using vegetable oil to get paraffin out of or off of something. Then you have to use strong detergent to get the resultant solution the rest of the way into solution with water.

I recommend using PowerGreens H2Pro Cleaner/Degreaser. It's a green cleaner that actually breaks down grease and oils into their base fatty acids and allows for a better cleaning with no residue. Place parts in aqueous solution, agitate or scrub, then rinse clean. I would also recommend blowing off the part to remove all excess water. This will get oils and grease off in a safe manner without the worry of solvents, voc's or other toxic chemicals in the mix. Check it out at www.thepowergreen.com

Canola oil and probably any cooking oil.

Dissolves immediately upon application of distilled vinegar...