A Remedy for Bird Poo

rayaans · October 1, 2017

Now, most of us on the Lexus Owners Club are proud of our cars and love to keep them looking clean. However, birds are not so keen on this and regularly evacuate their acidic (and sometimes seedy) excrement all over our paintwork.

Anyway, Ive been doing this trick for a while now and I thought some of you guys who live close to the shore, near the seagulls or just happen to find your car covered in bird poo on a morning would find it useful.

Now, the test vehicle - my son's MK5 VW Golf in Black Magic Pearl and the result of his hospital placement in Scarborough:

Yes, after a quick wash, it appears that seagulls have left their trace permanently on the paintwork. The first picture actually has scratches in it, no fault of the seagulls but my son knowing he should wipe it off quickly decided to wipe off rock hard poo, leaving scratches in the process.

Tools needed

Bog standard hairdryer
Mild polish - Autoglym SRP, Autosmart Mirror Image - something along the lines of that
Applicator
MF cloth

Method

Essentially, the idea is to heat up the paintwork but not get it too hot. That's why I use a hairdryer and not a heat gun. If the bird poo is fairly recent i.e. up to 1 week old like the one in the second picture, it'll be removed in 1-3 minutes of heat exposure without the use of a polish. If over that time, in my sons case, the 1st picture was over 1 month old, it may help but won't remove bird poo etching completely.

and here are the results - bear in mind this method works only if the bird poo is fairly recent i.e up to 1 week old!

Above - the original etching was over 1 month old. It has been improved but catches the light in certain angles. However, it is a massive improvement from the dull, scratched look earlier. This required heating with a hairdryer and 2 hits of Autosmart Mirror Image to get to this level.

Above - the original bird poo etching was 1 week old. It was COMPLETELY removed during the process whereby it was heated with a hairdryer only. No polish was applied. It cannot be seen in any angle, in any light, no matter what the circumstances.

Hope it helps! Let me know what you think.

October 1, 2017

Interesting tip on hairdryer :)

Would a good coating have prevented this though?

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rayaans · October 1, 2017

2 hours ago, Comedian said:

Interesting tip on hairdryer :)

Would a good coating have prevented this though?

Sent from my STV100-4 using Tapatalk

In theory yes, a ceramic coating probably would have helped but then Ive heard of instances where bird poo etches the coating giving the same effect.

Wax is usually quickly degraded by bird droppings and its not uncommon to see a fully waxed car with a bare, non-beading spot where the bird has evacuated its material. My son's Golf actually had Meguiars #16 on it at the time of the first dropping, and Sonax BSD on the second.

Additionally, the car is cheap on the grand scale of things (less than £3.5k). Is it worth sticking a coating on? Probably not, just in terms of preparation etc. I've taught him how to decontaminate and seal the car, that should suffice for now, especially since it picks up a new ding or some sort of damage every week from others whilst the car is parked.

October 2, 2017

I noticed on the stuff I use - Nippon shine king of gloss, that bird bombs simply knock off when dry, they can't stick, leave no mark or scratch. £22 a pot.

I had been searching a while for a solution as the are a lot of pigeons by us and they sure can s*** - they also seem to know when you've just washed it, preferring a clean target after a feast of blackberries.