Whenever you take your car out on the road, it’s always susceptible to the environment, no matter what you do.
You probably didn’t expect to get road paint on your car though, right?
If you’re prone to driving in the middle of the road or have driven over road lines for some other reason, you may need to remove road paint from your car.
Thankfully the most common line paint is very easy to remove. It’s not a sticky substance and in most cases it’s already dry before it lands on your car.
Keep reading this article to find out how to get road paint off your car. It doesn’t matter whether it’s white, yellow, or black, you’ll be able to remove it using the methods below.
How To Get Road Paint Off Your Car Paint
The most common road marking paint is water-based, drying quick and hard. More often than not it can be removed much easier than bugs, tar, or even tree sap.
In a lot of cases, removing road paint from your car will be as simple as washing it off.
Follow the steps below and we’ll have that yellow paint off in no time:
- Snow Foam – Because road line paint is hard you need to be a bit more cautious when washing those areas.
The safest way would be to buy one of the best snow foams available and cover your car in it.
Snow foam has cleaning agents that will work to loosen the road paint and after 5 minutes you should be able to rinse it off without any contact. - Contact Wash – If the snow foam and pressure washer didn’t work you’ll probably need to use some contact.
Fill a bucket with warm water and a high suds soap solution such as “Chemical Guys Mr Pink“. Using a car soap that’s got lots of suds will provide extra lubrication, helping to prevent the road paint from scratching your car.
If you’ve managed to remove the paint using a contact wash, make sure to remove the paint from your mitt or sponge before proceeding to wash the rest of your car. - Bug & Tar Remover – The best bug & tar removers use chemicals or solvents to loosen and/or dissolve bugs, tar, tree sap, and even road paint.
Most of the time these are simple spot cleaning products that come ready to use, all you need to do is spray it on the contaminated area and wait.
After you’ve let the bug & tar remover dwell for a couple of minutes, you’ll see the paint react and become ready to wipe away.
When you’re finished, make sure to rinse and wipe away any tar remover residue. Letting the product dry on your car will leave behind unsightly spotting. - Degreaser or WD40 – While they’re not necessarily meant for paintwork, sometimes you got to use what you’ve got to use.
When the line paint won’t budge, there’s a good chance that a heavy degreaser or even WD40 will remove it from your car. I’ve also heard of people using Dawn Dish Soap.
As long as you saturate the area in product, providing enough lubricant to prevent scratches, you will be ok.
Just make sure to thoroughly rinse the area afterward. You don’t want to leave products that are not designed for paint, on the paintwork of your car.
how to remove road paint from car wheel wells
Depending on the type of wheel wells that you have, cleaning road paint from them can be very easy or very hard. You can learn how to properly clean and protect your wheel wells here.
The process is very similar to cleaning road paint from your car.
If you have a trolley jack and tools to remove the wheel, it will also make your job a lot easier.
You should start with the least harmful method of cleaning first, which would be simply pressure washing the area.
Pressure washing the area is often enough if you have plastic wheel lining. Carpeted wheel liners will require some extra elbow grease and scrubbing.
If pressure washing doesn’t do the job, you could use a scrub brush or wash mitt to try and agitate the area using your favorite car soap.
Because the wheel liners are hidden for the most part and can take a lot of abuse, you can be a little rough with your scrubbing.
Keep working through the steps listed above and you will eventually remove the road paint.
If it still doesn’t budge, you could risk your wheel linings and take a blade to it. I wouldn’t recommend this though.