Especially now many classic car enthusiasts try to park their car in the shade to protect the paint from the sun.
And shade they find mostly under trees and that is where more danger for the paint is waiting. It’s droppings from our friends the birds.
Droppings © flickr/Hong Ray
The bird droppings are highly acid, which is bad enough for the paint of your classic car, but when you try to remove it with a wet towel, you will notice that it leaves scratch marks. Bird’s droppings are not only acid; they also contain gravel that birds use to digest their food.
The best you can do is to carry a bottle of water mixed with carbon dioxide with you in your classic car. Just water and carbon dioxide without any salt. The water won’t do any damage to the paint and when you shake it well when having a thumb on the spout, after having removed the lid, you can create a blast with which you can easily wash off the substance some bird left on your classic car. You should also wash away insect splatters as soon as possible by the way because the bodies of the insects also contain acid.
If you are worried about the effect that this can have on your cars, perhaps it might be a good time to have a look at your car insurance and see if you can get some good multi car insurance for your collection.
If you leave the droppings on the paint for too long you might have to polish your car to fix the damage.
