Removing tree sap (Gummosis as defined by Wikipedia) from your car's paint is generally a very difficult and time consuming task. Here are some tips and tools that are very effective and safe ways to remove tree sap.
1) You need to remove the bulk of the sap from the paint without damage to your paint. The most effective and safemethod is to use a wood paint stirring stick. These are the flat wood sticks given to you free every time you buy house paint. These work well because they are soft enough to not seriously scratch the paint yet they have nice edges that can grab the sap and scrape it off. Be careful not to get too aggressive with your scraping if you care about the paint. With enough force, you could do some damage to your paint.
2) Remove the remaining residue with full strength Simple Green or Goo Gone. I have purchased a number of Tar and Sap removers that are made for this but so far, I have found full strength Simple Green or Goo Gone to do a better job and seems to be safe for your paint. Now, this does take a fair amount of rubbing with pressure to completely remove the remains of the sticky sap. Use a soft clean rag or cloth and apply the Simple Green to the cloth, then rub like crazy! An old sock works well.
3) Finally, apply a cleaner wax to the entire area that you worked on. In many cases, this is a number of areas on your roof trunk and hood because you parked under a nasty tree that was raining sap onto your car. With that, you should probably go ahead and wax the entire car... What else are you going to do on a Sunday afternoon? You may need to use a mild rubbing compound or a cleaner wax with a mild abrasive to eliminate any minor scratches created from step 1.
Gummosis on your windows - The easy part.
Any tree sap on your windows is easily removed with a razor blade. This is the easy part because you can scrape it all off in one pass without a worry of damaging the glass. Make sure to use a razor blade holder so that you do not cut your finger off and really make it a bad day!
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