Long cruises to clear your mind, cruise evenings, and road vacations to create memories with your family are all ideal throughout the summer. It’s also the worst time of year for bugs and other flying pests, which will ruin your perfectly clean car in most parts of the country. It’s not simply your front bumper that acts as a bug catcher on the front of your vehicle, truck, SUV, or motorcycle. Bugs can damage your grill, windshield, mirrors, and lights, and if you don’t clean them up right away, it can be a hassle to fix later.
With summer being the hottest season of the year, removing the bug splatter must be done quickly. Bug splatter left on your car for too long will eat away at the paint, grill, headlights, and even your windshield. Bugs, like bird droppings, are acidic, and when they splatter across your vehicle’s surface during the summer, they bake in and cause blistering. Because many insects have hard shells, they can damage your paint and clearcoat, and it’s like a boulder slamming into your automobile at highway speeds.
WHAT TO DO IF THERE ARE BUGS ON YOUR CAR
Of course, you can’t always wash your car right after a ride or for several days, but we recommend making the effort to do it as soon as possible. We always rinse and clean our entire car or SUV, but if time is limited, you can also spot treat and clean the bug-infested areas. Cleaning bugs off of your car isn’t difficult, but there are a few strategies and items we recommend that can help make the procedure go more smoothly. Even a little elbow grease may go a long way!
THE LIST OF ESSENTIAL THINGS YOU NEED TO REMOVE BUGS FROM YOUR CAR
Don’t overthink it; cleaning bug carcasses off your automobile isn’t rocket science. To make the cleaning process go more smoothly, we recommend gathering the following supplies.
Bug Washing Supplies:
- Car Shampoo
- Car Wash Buckets
- Microfiber Wash Mitt
- Microfiber Towels
- Soft Detailing Brushes
- Bug & Tar Remover or an APC (All Purpose Cleaner)
- Bug Removal Towel
- Car Polish
- Paint Sealant or Car Wax
- Plastic Razor Blade
If you have a pressure washer, it can assist speed up the process of cleaning up the bugs on your automobile, although it is not entirely necessary. A standard garden hose will suffice.
THE INITIAL PROCESS THAT YOU NEED TO FOLLOW TO REMOVE BUGS FROM YOUR CAR
When it comes to cleaning up your car, the first step is to give it a nice wash. Start by rinsing your vehicle with your hose or pressure washer. This is a terrific technique to soften up the bugs sprayed across the front of your car and knock them down. We try to take a few extra measures at Glowdetailing.ca to make the large cleaning procedure a bit easier.
FIRST STEP IN CLEANING BUGS ON YOUR CAR
When we get a car with an unhealthy quantity of bug guts coated on it, we start by using a large cleaner or APC to loosen up the afflicted regions. We normally let the bug cleaner operate for 30 seconds to a minute on the surface before removing it. We don’t want it to linger in direct sunlight for too long, so reduce the dwell duration to 10-15 seconds if it’s too hot. If you don’t have a bug wash on hand, we recommend using an excellent all-purpose cleaner.
Don’t be afraid to use your products on this stage because you can saturate the bugs on your paint, chrome, glass, lighting, and anything in between.
After allowing the insect wash to sit for a few minutes, we’ll rinse the entire car and do our best to blast off any remaining bugs or debris. Later on, the resistant areas will be treated more thoroughly.
WASHING BUGS OFF OF YOUR CAR IS THE NEXT STEP
The next major step in removing the wasteland of bug life from your automobile is to wash it with a high-quality soap. We always start with a foam cannon and a high-quality car shampoo to prep the entire vehicle. We’ll let the frothy suds stay on the vehicle for a few minutes, just like we did with the insect removal wash earlier, to continue working into the difficult spots. If you don’t have a foam cannon or pressure washer, you can use a foam gun that connects to your garden hose. It will be a little runnier, but it will do the trick.
After letting the fluffy foam settle for a few minutes, rinse the entire vehicle once more before starting your contact wash. We prefer the two-bucket wash approach or the single-bucket wash method with a large number of wash mitts since they both reduce the risk of dragging soiled wash mitts over the automobile. You can have your soapy car wash bucket and another bucket of clean water to rinse your mitts as you clean using two buckets. While this is a good strategy, we prefer to use many wash mitts in the same soap bucket and change mittens after each panel is washed.
This is another wonderful way to prevent dirt, grease, gravel, bugs, and other contaminants from dragging across your paint. A grit guard is another crucial piece of car washing equipment that we supply in every bucket. This functions as a bucket filter, forcing dirt and debris to settle at the bottom of the bucket rather than on your wash mitt.
When we hand wash a car, we begin at the top and work our way down, allowing the dirt to slide down the car and away from the recently cleaned panels. We propose focusing your efforts on the remaining bugs with a more direct approach after you’ve washed the entire vehicle.
This is where an insect removal towel comes in handy and can help you accomplish the work faster. The bug towel is made of a mesh-like cloth that is mildly abrasive and mechanically removes bugs and bug guts from paint, chrome, lighting, and glass. To concentrate on your tough bugs, you can use Stoner Bug Eraser Wipes or anything similar. They resemble a wet napkin and include a softening chemical to aid in the removal of bugs and intestines.
We like to wash the surface again after we’ve spot cleaned the bugs that were clinging to it. This gets rid of any remaining bugs and cleaners from your spot cleaning. If there are any minor impurities left over, we will use a clay bar or a clay towel with a clay lube to disinfect the area if your automobile is not ceramic coated, or you can remove the coating. This mechanical disinfection will leave you with a clean surface that you can lightly polish if desired, as well as a layer of protection.
The easiest part of your car to clean is either the windscreen or a chrome bumper. This is where the large removal cloth or a plastic razor blade will come in handy to scrape the bugs off the surface. This is also safe for paint, although it may produce marring or scratches, which we don’t want to risk. The plastic razor is tough enough to scrape the bugs away yet gentle enough not to scratch your glass or chrome. It makes quick work of bugs and their guts, and it’s a terrific and quick way to clean things up.
THE FINAL STEP IN PREVENTING BUG SPLATTER FROM STICKING
We like to keep our cars safe from the elements, and in this case, bugs. To make the cleaning procedure easier, we like to use protection on our paint, glass, and bumpers. A decent quality paint sealant or even wax is an excellent way to keep bugs off your car’s surfaces and will make cleaning up a breeze if you wash it frequently, even if it’s covered in dead bugs. Ceramic and graphene coatings are great, but not everyone has the budget or time for them, so we prefer spray sealants with ceramic or graphene in them. One of our most recent favourites is a fantastic drying aid that helps to lubricate your vehicle while you’re driving.
