Bug Splatter Can Ruin Your Paint—Here’s How to Remove It

It’s unavoidable—when you do enough driving, especially country driving, you’re going to get some bug splatter on your mirrors, bumper and grill. While this isn’t necessarily a big problem, it can become one if you don’t remove the splatter as soon as possible.

Bug splatter is acidic, so it can eat away at your vehicle’s finish and paint, resulting in some ugly pockmarks and splotches. The bacteria that forms on top of the bugs can also eat away at the vehicle’s paint. In addition, the longer you let the splatter sit, the more difficult it becomes to remove it.

With this in mind, you should make it a point to wash your vehicle every two weeks or so during the summer, and prioritize bug removal on your car, especially if you’ve been driving on the highway for an extended period of time. Give your vehicle a deep clean after a road trip. Remember that extreme temperatures will only make the issue with bugs worse. The hotter it is, the more likely you are to experience damage or difficulty removing the bugs from the exterior of your vehicle.

How to remove bug stains from my car

A lot of people will simply take their vehicle through an automatic car wash and hope this takes care of the job. While these types of car washes can certainly be helpful and will rinse off some of the bugs, you’re probably going to need to give your vehicle a manual cleaning if you’re going to succeed in removing all of them.

Handheld pressure sprayers can do some of the hard work of removing bugs from your vehicle, but the best method is to use a bucket of water and a microfiber cloth. Avoid using terry cloth, as this could be overly abrasive, resulting in marks that are more likely to show up, especially on darker vehicles.

If you still have a hard time getting some of the bugs off even with a microfiber cloth, you can try a pre-treatment before proceeding with the wash. Spray on a mixture of water with a mild dish detergent, let it sit and then wash as normal.

You can also find a variety of solutions on the market that claim to specialize in bug removal. However, you’re always going to have to use a bit of elbow grease to get the job done—no type of product or solution is just going to dissolve the bugs and prevent you from having to do any of the tough work yourself.

Ultimately, it takes a little bit of patience and a willingness to be thorough with your inspection of your vehicle, but it’s worth it to get rid of all the bugs and protect your vehicle’s finish and paint job from long-term damage.

Interested in learning more about bug removal on a car? We encourage you to contact our team today at Tom’s Body and Paint, Inc. with any questions you have about the best methods of cleaning off your vehicle.

Categorised in: Auto Body Paint

This post was written by Writer