How-To…Remove Bird Muck Properly

Dratted birds! You’ve come out your house to find you newly-cleaned pride and joy splattered with their dried on muck, which is a real pain to get off. Why should you remove it quickly, after all it’s just dirt right, and there’s no need to wash off normal dirt in a hurry as it won’t damage the paint. But we’re talking bird dirt here though people, and this stuff is majorly acidic and also abrasive, and if not removed within a short period of time it will damage your paintwork. So what do you do normally? Just grab a sponge or scrubbing pad and scrub the muck off? Let’s make it easier and go through what you shouldn’t do first.

What to avoid doing

Don’t just use the nearest old T shirt, cloth and definitely not a scrubbing pad (the type used for pots and pans). Don’t have a go at the bird muck while it’s dry and baked on either. Don’t use strong cleaning detergents, such as washing-up liquid etc. Another thing to avoid doing is rubbing at the dried out bird muck with your finger to remove it. If you do use those things, you will end up putting swirls and light scratch marks into your paintwork, and using a detergent will take off any wax or polish that you’ve previously applied.

What to do

Do try and remove bird dirt within 48 hours of it landing on your car. After just 2 days, it can start to damage paintwork, as the acids in it are strong. We’ve seen cars that have had bird muck left on for two weeks, and the only way to get the paint back to normal again is to get either a paint correction process done or to have a panel resprayed. Yes, it really is that bad!

What will I need?

A pressure washer or a hosepipe with a sprayer nozzle, a decent wash mitt or sponge, a wax or detailer spray and a good microfibre cloth.

How to remove the bird muck safely

1. Rinse off as much of the bird dirt as you can with a pressure washer, hosepipe or bucket of clean water.



2. Soak a piece of kitchen roll or soft cloth with water.
3. Place the wet kitchen roll or cloth over the dried on bird muck. If it’s very baked on, try using warm water instead of cold on the roll or cloth.



4. Leave the wet roll or cloth to soak on the bodywork for a few minutes until the bird dirt has softened.



5. After the muck has softened sufficiently, use a good wash mitt or sponge and a bucket of water with some decent detergent-free car shampoo to remove the last of the bird muck. If it still wont shift, don’t scrub at it, but instead repeat steps 2 – 5 again.





6. Rinse off the suds fully with clean water.



7. Use a good soft microfibre cloth to dry the water off the paintwork.



8. Use some detailing spray or a wax over the area where the bird muck was to top your wax back up again, as the bird dirt may have eaten it away.



9. Stand back and admire how good the formerly muck-bombarded area now looks.

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