Supagard not protecting

[WhiteHart]

I was ill for a few days and when I went to my car, the birds had taken a liking to the bonnet so I took it to be washed. And now I have marks on the bonnet where the birds had used it as a public toilet. I paid for Suragard and also used a bird lime remover but it's still there. Now I called Lexus and said they will get back to me.

Anyone else ever had this problem?

[NemesisUK]

Yes, on my RC boot lid. Lexus dealership took it in and polished out the blemishes. My car was ceramic coated. Bird droppings are very aggressive and if not removed at once will etch into the top coat.

[First_Lexus]

They may also be able to use heat lamps to help remove it as I understand it. I also had this on my ceramic coated NX300h in Mesa Red, and heat sorted a couple on the roof without any aggressive correction work that would have required the coating to be reapplied.

Lexus Swindon used to have heat lamps in one of their workshops to help with this sort of thing (going back 3-4 years).

[Spacewagon52]

My 2 year old Hyundai Stellar had to have the whole roof resprayed due to bird droppings!

[NemesisUK]

The clear coat on our cars is "self-healing" using heat from the sun (or heat lamps) to correct minor blemishes/swirls/marring. The Sonic Red on my RC seemed very sensitive to bird droppings, the Azure Blue on the second RC not quite so bad and the F Sport White on the RX (not ceramic coated) virtually immune! 

[First_Lexus]

42 minutes ago, NemesisUK said:

The clear coat on our cars is "self-healing" using heat from the sun (or heat lamps) to correct minor blemishes/swirls/marring. The Sonic Red on my RC seemed very sensitive to bird droppings, the Azure Blue on the second RC not quite so bad and the F Sport White on the RX (not ceramic coated) virtually immune! 

One of the reasons I went for Sonic White on my RX…far less prone to showing imperfections than darker colours and still very sparkly in the sun!

[First_Lexus]

47 minutes ago, Spacewagon52 said:

My 2 year old Hyundai Stellar had to have the whole roof resprayed due to bird droppings!

I remember the newspaper adverts for the Stellar - along the lines of “We saw the Cortina replacement slightly differently” aimed at the jelly mould Sierra. The Stellar was a Korean produced Cortina effectively, correct?

[Scotlex]

I had this problem a few years ago. Very annoying.

Maybe depends on what the birds have been eating.

[rayaans]

Supagard is rubbish. 

Its a sealant and not a very good one. Most of the time slapped on by valeters without proper preparation. I dont think anyone has got it to last 6 months nevermind 1 year or whatever they claim

In the first instance I would use a hairdryer on the bird marks - they certainly dont need polishing straight away. Sustained heat for 5 minutes should cause it to disappear. 

Secondly, I would try to get a refund of the supagard and get a detailer to apply a proper ceramic coating

[HighlandJohn]

14 minutes ago, Scotlex said:

I had this problem a few years ago. Very annoying.

Maybe depends on what the birds have been eating.

Geese droppings are among the worse for marking, and you need to be very careful when removing them as they contain grit.  

[Scotlex]

1 hour ago, HighlandJohn said:

Geese droppings are among the worse for marking, and you need to be very careful when removing them as they contain grit.  

Don't think that it was geese, but I once tried to quickly remove droppings and ended up scratching the paint 🙈🙈

[LenT]

15 hours ago, Scotlex said:

Don't think that it was geese, but I once tried to quickly remove droppings and ended up scratching the paint 🙈🙈

Unless it’s a fresh deposit - for which I find that kitchen roll and plenty of water is perfectly adequate - I using a method recommended by a professional Detailer.

I have a couple of maintenance sprays for my ceramic finish.  I spray the avian gift and allow it to soften until it easily wipes off.  The spray then also reinforces the ceramic coating.

[Cotswold Pete]

18 hours ago, HighlandJohn said:

Geese droppings are among the worse for marking, and you need to be very careful when removing them as they contain grit.  

I have found bat sh*t is worse, had one do his business on my bonnet and within 6 hours had eaten down to the undercoat on the LS (which has heaven knows how many layers). 

Thanks heavens not too many bats where I live (well ones  that fly and poo at the same time).

[DavidCM]

2 hours ago, Cotswold Pete said:

 

Thanks heavens not too many bats where I live (well ones  that fly and poo at the same time).

As that was a multi tasking bat it will have been a female....

[Barry14UK]

4 hours ago, LenT said:

Unless it’s a fresh deposit - for which I find that kitchen roll and plenty of water is perfectly adequate - I using a method recommended by a professional Detailer.

I have a couple of maintenance sprays for my ceramic finish.  I spray the avian gift and allow it to soften until it easily wipes off.  The spray then also reinforces the ceramic coating.

kitchen roll can vary in coarseness.  I tried to soak and wipe some birds poo off my car and it didn't scratch it but did mark it.  I used several applications of a good polish to remove the slight abrasion and it is now indistinguishable from elsewhere.  Due to our location we get a lot of birds bombarding cars, particularly Sea Gulls and at times Geese, so cleaning off is a regular thing.  Generally I used to use the old trick of applying wet newspapers to help soften before washing off but with news now on line, no longer have newspapers. 

[LenT]

54 minutes ago, Barry14UK said:

  I tried to soak and wipe some birds poo off my car and it didn't scratch it but did mark it.  I used several applications of a good polish to remove the slight abrasion and it is now indistinguishable from elsewhere.  Due

I would emphasise again that the car does have a very good quality baked on ceramic finish.  One of the benefits is that it makes the removal of bird droppings very much easier and the paint surface much harder to stain or scratch.

Something to consider if you live under highly incontinent birds!

[Gary H]

I’m not the greatest of fans of Supagard, it has to be said. We’ve had it done on two cars in our household when new (going back to the very late 00s) and on both occasions thought it was a waste of money, personally. It was around this time I started to not really trust dealers cleaning new cars properly and found that one of my first/basic washes on a new car after a week or two of collecting it gives it a better finish than it had on the day of collection. Over time, I can usually build up my own level of decent protection on the car with regular wash-waxes and decent quality ceramic sprays anyway. Obviously a proper ceramic coating is far superior, but comes at a price. If you keep on top of your car as I do, the ceramic sprays which need re-applying every few months are sufficient. 

From my experience, using kitchen roll and warm water on bird droppings which are relatively fresh is generally fine - providing you obviously don’t rub away at it. The best advice I can give in this respect would be to soak a sheet of kitchen roll in warm water and then put it over the ‘offending’ area and allow it to soften up for a minute or so. Go back a minute or two later with another wet piece of kitchen roll. I’m incredibly fussy over car-cleanliness and I know professional detailers would very much cringe at the thought of this method. However, providing it’s not something that’s truly baked on or been there for several days, this method has almost always worked well for me!
 
@Spacewagon52 - This very much reminds me of a Corsa 1.6 Sport which my father bought brand new back in 1998. I take after him when it comes to car care. We took it up to Scotland on a touring holiday in 2000. This must have been about six months before he traded it in. Anyway, we were up there for a week and three days before we come home, there was a notable bird-dropping on the nearside rear corner of roof. Without anything decent to hand, we decided to leave it until we got home. Bad mistake... It had already etched itself into the lacquer in those three days. We did very much ‘lessen’ it’s appearance on the paintwork, but you could clearly see it’s outline if you knew where to look. The only way you’d get that out would be professional sanding equipment which we didn’t have or have the confidence to do so! Luckily the dealer, who we had a great relationship with anyway, never noticed it!

[LenT]

11 hours ago, Gary H said:

I’m not the greatest of fans of Supagard, it has to be said. We’ve had it done on two cars in our household when new (going back to the very late 00s) and on both occasions thought it was a waste of money, personally. It

I think you’re right!

I had it applied to a new car ‘FOC’ as a special treat by the Dealer.  I certainly wouldn’t have paid extra for it.  These days there are much better, proven systems for superior paint protection.

[WhiteHart]

So my dealership told me to contact Supagard which I did and they said there should have been a Supagard bag of tricks in the car (not in the car, will deal with the dealership later). Supagard sent me one of their products with instructions so after working on the bonnet for over an hour some of the marks have gone and the rest are not as obvious. 
For now I am too busy and the weather does not help but will get back to Supagard and the dealer as soon as. Spent to much money to be happy with the marks. 

[Scotlex]

1 hour ago, WhiteHart said:

So my dealership told me to contact Supagard which I did and they said there should have been a Supagard bag of tricks in the car (not in the car, will deal with the dealership later). Supagard sent me one of their products with instructions so after working on the bonnet for over an hour some of the marks have gone and the rest are not as obvious. 
For now I am too busy and the weather does not help but will get back to Supagard and the dealer as soon as. Spent to much money to be happy with the marks. 

In the past I received quite a big bag of Supagard "cleaning Stuff" which included "bird dropping remover".

Good luck.

[NemesisUK]

50 minutes ago, Scotlex said:

In the past I received quite a big bag of Supagard "cleaning Stuff" which included "bird dropping remover".

Good luck.

Ditto, my first Mercedes was treated with Supagard and there was a large kit bag in the boot with all sorts of stuff, one of which was the bird dropping remover. Not sure what the formulation was but it didn't perform any better than warm water!

Bottom line is if you don't get to the offending deposit whilst still wet the damage is done and nothing works better than copious amounts of warm water....

[WhiteHart]

All my cars in the last few years have come with the packs, but this time it did not occur to me to look .

I will remember next time.

 

[rayaans]

5 hours ago, WhiteHart said:

So my dealership told me to contact Supagard which I did and they said there should have been a Supagard bag of tricks in the car (not in the car, will deal with the dealership later). Supagard sent me one of their products with instructions so after working on the bonnet for over an hour some of the marks have gone and the rest are not as obvious. 
For now I am too busy and the weather does not help but will get back to Supagard and the dealer as soon as. Spent to much money to be happy with the marks. 

Id aim for a refund.

Its unlikely theyd do anything about the actual marks themselves - you will have to sort that out yourself. Get a hairdryer on it, itll sort it out but if you're going to leave it for a month itll make it more difficult

 

[WhiteHart]

News just in, sent an email late last night. Supagard replied “

Rest assured I have raised and escalated your claim to our/your local agent ….  ……. who will be in touch to have this marking professionally removed.”

still not a word from Lexus who I paid £60000plus  

 

[WhiteHart]

I now have an appointment with a Lexus body shop to see if it can be polished out, or have to have the whole bonnet re-sprayed and the wings to blended in. Supagard to pick up the bill. Next car £500 from a scrapyard then I don’t have to care about the car or the service I get (Good service from Supagard).