How to remove cement from your car?

v-deniso

Hi

I was wondering if anyone has had a similar experience or may know a solution to my problem?

The other week I was driving down the country but was held up behind a cement lorry for a few km's. As the day was wet and road muddy when I finished my journey I didn’t notice that there were little lumps of cement about the size of a 1cent coins on my bonnet. After I cleaned the car these stayed intact and I cant remove them without scratching the paintwork.

Anyone know what way I should go about trying to remove these without removing my paint?

v-deniso

C'mon!

Someone has to have a few ideas...

whippet

I believe without a strong solvent it is near impossible, and the solvent will discoulour the paint work.

The only real solution is to send a very snotty letter to the cement company demanding that they pay for a full respray.

lomb

powerwash it? i suppose testing an area is a good thing, what will remove it is that acid stuff thats used to clean floor tiles after fitting them, but thats a strong acid and will eat the paint. maybe try diluting it and using a earbud, apply it to one piece of cement for a few minutes and try powerwashing it away.

css

cement is tricky, it contains lime that's gonna mark the paint anyhow, so get it off asap.. have you tried lightly scraping most of it off and then get at it with cleaners... i've no idea to be honest, just something i'd try myself..

Squirrel

Some of the acid based cleaners will discolour the car so you could use them and then use a colour restorer, or theres some putty type stuff which can cut away small bits of cement/paint overspray, but only very small bits, maybe not bits the size of 1 cent coins, but if you do use that wash the car well afterwards and a good quality polish.

Seth Brundle

http://www.howtocleananything.com/tipdetails.asp?tid=922

Squirrel

kbannon wrote:

http://www.howtocleananything.com/tipdetails.asp?tid=922

You should also polish the car after this

nellieswellies

Petrol works on Tar but wash the car afterwards, not sure if it would work on cement

v-deniso

Thanks guys for all your tips

I will give it a go this evening and let you know how I got on

BaZmO*

Something similar happened to one of the lads in work. While working on a site in town he and several other people left their cars parked outside, as you do, and the builder decided to apply a cement render to the outside of the building without asking the people to move their cars.

And to make matters worse he never washed down the cars when he finished and therefore destroyed the paintjobs on about 10 cars.

The insurance just paid for all the cars to be resprayed which made me think that it was impossible to remove the cement spots without actually ruining the paintwork.

B.

AMurphy

If you cannot chip it off with an old credit card or hard plastic, it stufk for the duration. (same goes for road paint)

in which case you have 2 choices, leave it there or have it repaired.

in which case you can either pay for it yourself, or go after the concrete co. (and as i have no sympathy for those louts that spill it about willy nilly in the first place,) I'd do that if the bill were high.
of course they will counter you should not have been tailgating in the first, which you should not anyway, and you can counter you were traveling in the opposite direction and some great gobs of the stuff came flying off it.


Which happened to me, as the chute was whipping about from side to side, as well as spilling the load.

This is one of the idiot driving practices that cops should be monitoring, rather than playing with radars, not to mention the general overloading of the roads inthe first place.

Rodney Trotter

v-deniso wrote:

Hi

I was wondering if anyone has had a similar experience or may know a solution to my problem?

The other week I was driving down the country but was held up behind a cement lorry for a few km's. As the day was wet and road muddy when I finished my journey I didn’t notice that there were little lumps of cement about the size of a 1cent coins on my bonnet. After I cleaned the car these stayed intact and I cant remove them without scratching the paintwork.

Anyone know what way I should go about trying to remove these without removing my paint?

Check out http://www.jjengineerssupplies.co.uk/chemical_solutions.php

specifically

C304 CHEMICAL DESCALER 28% HYDROCHLORIC ACID - Use to remove cement and concrete from plant and machinery. Will descale tanks and heat exchangers, boilers, pipework etc.

You can get general purpose cement removers in any DIY shop, WOODIES etc. If you care to risk it, get one of these, dilute with water (keep a record of the dilution) and try on a small spot of cement. Keep increasing the concentration of acid until you can get the cement off. Start with a very weak solution, then work up the concentration.

stratos

I had this problem. I thought about it for a while . The solution i came up with was to put a bag of ice cubes over the cement spot. The reasoning being the metal and cement would contract at different rates and crack the cement off the bonnet. It worked a treat. was a tiny stain left over was carefully zymoled out.

Victor

Try some car polish remover?

I would try chipping away with it very carefully with a soft brush.

MercMad

I had this problem. I thought about it for a while . The solution i came up with was to put a bag of ice cubes over the cement spot. The reasoning being the metal and cement would contract at different rates and crack the cement off the bonnet. It worked a treat. was a tiny stain left over was carefully zymoled out.

I love it !

Thats using the head !

Would the opposite work, like using a hairdrier, which may be easier ?

Squirrel

MercMad wrote:

I love it !

Thats using the head !

Would the opposite work, like using a hairdrier, which may be easier ?

The heat can damage the paintwork, like when removing stickers you can only point the heat at the body for a short time.