It’s a pain and a half to get sap off your car, as any driver will tell you. The easiest way to get sap off your car is not to get sap on your car in the first place. That means not parking under a tree if you can possibly help it. Especially in the spring, when the trees are dripping sap. If you do happen to get sap on your car, there’s an easy way to get it off: hand sanitizer.
Sap can leak from any tree. The sap from pine trees, however, is the worst offender when it comes to your car. Pine sap is stickier than the sap of other trees and stubbornly resists removal from your car. The sap from pine trees is, in fact, so sticky that it is an essential ingredient in many paint products. Some call pine sap “tar” which isn’t technically true, but does indeed describe the next-level stickiness of the stuff.
April showers may bring spring flowers, but it is also the season of sap dripping on and sticking to your car. While sap can drip at any time of the year, trees are mostly dormant during winter. It is the freezing temperatures of winter, followed by sunny, warmer days that really gets that tree sap dripping. Not to mention that the best time to prune trees is in the spring. Sap coming from a cut or broken branch is going to really flow and make a mess. That’s when you really, really don’t want to park under a tree.
Don’t Park Under Trees
Trees are also prone to infestation by insects which can also cause that sap to flow. That can happen at any time of the year. So don’t depend on the weather as a sap predictor. Cover your car or park it elsewhere if you possibly can, year round.
If you do get sap on your car, get it off as soon as you can. Sap on your car isn’t just ugly—it can harm the paint job, leaving your car prone to rust and permanent damage. Tree sap is corrosive, in particular in warm weather. Heat also accelerates the bonding process which means that the longer you wait to clean off the sap, the harder it will be to remove from your car. Another issue to consider is shrinkage. As the drops of tree sap sit on your car, they shrink, creating tension between the sap and the finish of your car. This can lead to cracks in the clear coat or sealant of your car, which in turn, may cause the paint to crack.
Because tree sap is tenacious in the way it attaches itself to your car, you may be tempted to scrape it off. Word (literally) to the wise: DON’T. Chipping away at tree sap bubbles with your fingernail or paint scraper will get the sap off your car, sure. But it will also take the paint off your car.
Get Sap Off Your Car with Hand Sanitizer
Since scraping away at the stuff is a no-no, how should you get sap off your car? That is, in the unlucky event that there was no place to park but under that sap-dripping pine tree in front of your house? What you want to do is use a solvent that’s tough enough to get sap off your car, but gentle enough not to damage the finish. Hand sanitizer is a good solution.
You probably already have hand sanitizer on hand, if you’ll excuse the pun. That’s the first reason to use it to get sap off your car. Aside from availability, hand sanitizer works well for removing sap from your car because the alcohol acts as a solvent. Then there’s the texture. Because hand sanitizer is a gel, you can spot treat the sap stains. The gelled texture of hand sanitizer also means it stays where you put it until you wipe it away—which is far more effective than simply wiping at the sap with isopropyl alcohol on a rag.
To use hand sanitizer to clean tree sap off your car, use your finger to apply it to a sap-stained area. Allow the hand sanitizer to sit for a couple of minutes and do its sap-removing magic. Then wipe it away with a soft cloth.
Always Wash and Wax
Note that the only way to get sap off your car is with a solvent. While hand sanitizer is easy and convenient, other solvents will do the trick. Commercial tree-sap removal products; nail polish remover; rubbing alcohol; or baking soda and hot water are all decent alternatives to hand sanitizer. Because all of these products are solvents, they will not only get the sap off your car, but remove the wax. For this reason, you should always wash and wax your car after treating sap stains.
