Bug splats are one of the most stubborn stains you may experience in your car. They are so much fixative that it even damages the paint of your car. If you have WD40 in your garage, then you can use it as an effective alternative to bug remover. Let’s see how to clean bugs off car with WD40 at home.
Bug Infestation In Car
Catching bugs on your car is quite a frequent incident if you live in a region that is densely packed with bugs. For example, if you live in Florida or Louisiana, you’ll get to experience this scenario twice a year.
Lovebugs are by far the most common culprit for bugs attack in the car. Although you may see different bugs like beetles on the top surface. Anyways, all these bugs stay on the top of your car or into the bumper of your car. But why are they so much difficult to clean off?
It’s not too hard to repel live bugs from the car surface. But the problem arises when the dead bug stays on the car surface for a long time. Dead bugs basically dry off with the car paint and stick to the car surface making it extremely difficult to clean. You can hardly clean them off with even hot soap water, let alone damp rags.
Besides, it’s incredibly risky to clean off bugs with any conventional method. Because it may damage the car paint since the decomposed bug actually dries off and kind of penetrates into the paint. Whenever you’ll try to use any corrosive agent to clean off these stubborn bugs from your car surface, it actually affects your car paint as a side effect.
So the question is, how to actually get rid of the bug stains safely? There are a few ways to do that, like orthodox bug cleaners, tar remover or degreaser. All of these works just excellent if you have them in your house, you can look for other alternatives too.
How To Clean Bugs Off Car With WD40
As we mentioned earlier, WD 40 also works really great on removing bug splats from your car without damaging the car paint. Some of you might be skeptical about this trick, but it actually works! Let’s see how you can clean off the bugs with only using WD 40—
Washing The Car
To get rid of bugs, you will need to follow a few steps before actually applying the WD 40. So you should definitely start by washing your car. Give a full blown wash to your car with soap and water. Brush the surface to eradicate most of the bugs that haven’t stuck to the paint yet.
Washing your car will particularly help to let you see the affected areas if your car is dirty & not washed that much often. It will also help to repel off the live bugs.
Apply The WD40
In this step, you can use any type of bug remover you want, but we are using WD40 instead. Bug removers are specially made to dissolve the bug debris that is stuck on the car surface.
Decomposed bugs are usually acidic in nature. So these bug removers work pretty well remove both bugs and acid stains from your car. You can particularly use Bug Mitt if the bug stains are fresh and not dried off yet. But WD40 is what we are going for as it’s commonly available.
To clean off the bugs from the car with WD 40, you’ll have to apply the product to the affected areas. WD40 comes in a spray bottle, which gives us more comfort to apply the product. After applying the product, leave it for several minutes.
As you know, WD 40 is a sort of penetrating oil, which penetrates into the surface to provide a deep cleansing effect. The reason for choosing WD 40 is, it is a brilliant liquid to not only clean the surface but also it stops the corrosion that the bugs create with their acidic debris.
Anyways, within a few minutes, the WD 40 will pretty much eradicate the bug remains on the car surface and even on the bumpers. Use a dry rag to wipe off the WD 40 and give another wash to the car.
You might need to re-apply the product again. Because sometimes only a single application won’t help to get rid of the bug stains. Repeat the process several times until you’re happy with the result and give your car a final wash. Make sure that your car doesn’t have any leftover residue on its surface, which is kind of important.
Apply Car Wax
The final step is to apply car wax on the car surface. A coat of car wax actually helps to clean off a future bug infestation in your car. That way, it will not let the paint surface of your car get damaged by this acidic debris.
Other than protecting your car, another reason for applying car wax is to replace the previous car wax coat of your car. Multiple applications of WD 40 actually wipe off the wax layer of your car, so you need to re-coat the paint surface.
You can also use a bug deflector shield. It dramatically minimizes the infestation of bugs and keep your car bug free. Once you apply the protective layer, you’re done!
So that’s how you can clean the stubborn bug splats off your car. Remember, you need to wash your car every once in a while to prevent frequent bug attacks. Try this tutorial at home and let us know if you’re happy with the result. Happy riding!