Using denatured alcohol on paint??
 

My g/f's car was recently parked under a tree for a week while we went away. When we returned it was covered with crap. I'd guess some of it is tree sap, but its no longer sticky and seems to be (for lack of a better term) "burnt" onto her paint. We've tried bug/tar/sap remover and it didn't work well. While the gunk came off, it took about a quarter bottle and some major elbow work to take even a small splotch off. Considering her entire hood is covered, that stuff will not be good enough.

Anyway, fastward to today and someone told her to use denatured alcohol on it. The recommending person said its taken off some pretty bad goop on their car. However, we're leary about whether or not it will damage the clear coat/paint.

So, my questions are:

1) Has anyone used denatured alcohol with success, and does it damage anything?

2) Does anyone have any other recommendations that they know won't damage the clear coat/paint.

Thanks everyone! Your advice will be very appreciated, we've been trying to get this crap off for about a week now to no avail. It has been washed twice and nothing seems to help :(.

My guess is that a good going over with a clay bar will do it. But for expert advice, go to www.autopia.com for good answers.

I was thinking of trying a clay bar. Can you recommend one?

Try Dawn dishwashing soap before you attempt alcohol. Then claybar, then wash with a good carwashing soap, and then wax it.

Denatured will not hurt the paint it is not "hot" enough, and it is water based not solvent.

Well...I tried the denatured alcohol and it did nothing :(. It did remove the pine sap on the roof, but it couldn't budge whatever the hell sap was on the hood.

However, the good news is we did manage to get the car clean. All it took was two freaking hours with a claybar, and that's two people working on it! You can bet how miffed we were, but we were happy it came clean.

It got a nice coat of Mother's Carnuba wax afterwards too since that's the wax that came with the claybar. Hopefully that'll make the next sap issue a little easier to deal with since her car's never been waxed before.