White Spirit

[mraldonnelly]

Yes, it smells fantastic but will it damage the paintwork of my car?

Last Wednesday I returned to my car to find it covered in splashes of paint (just little blobs - everywhere). It looks like that enamel paint used for models etc. It was a windy day and I assume somebody, somewhere (while eating their toffee crisp) was painting something silver and the wind blew bits of paint everywhere.

I've scraped the paint off the glass but obviously don't want to do that with the bodywork.

I've tried white spirit in a small area and it shifts the paint splashes with a little effort and does not appear to damage the finish of the car's paintwork. However, will it cause damage that I can't see immediately?

If so, I'll probably just leave it with the splashes on. But if not, I was planning on going over the whole car removing the splashes with white spirit and then T-cutting before finally polishing. Jeeeez, what an effort that's going to be but I wouldn't want to leave it without a wax after going at it with white spirit (and the T-cut will simply be because I may as well while I'm at it - the paintwork could do with a brightening).

Regards

Andy

[neil stevenson]

The white spirit should not harm your paint if used to only clean off the paint splashes and not left to sit on the paint.

However if you are going to Tcut it any way the Tcut will remove the splashes.

Don't forget to polish the fresh paint surface to protect it.

[scimitar]

Jim

You should find that white spirit should not attack you car's paint because it is such a mild solvent and your car will have been painted with a full stoving synthetic paint system. Even if some local repairs have been carried out with an air drying paint system, gentle rubbing with white spirit should have no effect. However I would advise that you leave the application of T Cut for some 24 hours after white spirit application to ensure complete evaporation from both on the paints surface but in case any absorbtion on trappment occurred.
Jim

[ivor940]

I have often used white spirit to remove tar spots with no ill effects (on many different cars). I would be careful however using t-cut as the effort to remove the silver paint spots will affect the original paint where there are no silver paint spots. The sooner the silver is removed the better, as it will harden.

Ivor940