Slight marks in clearcoat?

For the bird poop I'd - clay and see if that removes, if not go to Prima Swirl and work Swirl till it comes out. I'd get a good qualtiy wax and then BG

As far as the stripes you could clean them with something like 303 Aerospace Protectant. If 5 yrs old and never cleaned that is going to be a long job. These vinyl stripes are not made to last forever I'd suggest swapping out for new (if you like the stripes). Process for the paint is the same as above. It will take you longer I suspect

In a nutshell polish till you get smooth and see if any color fade and make your decision to re-stripe or not from there

As a suggestion I'd add Amigo inbetween the Swirl and Wax. Fantastic stuff!

 

My guess is that the poop etched the clearcoat and you'll probably have to polish the paint to get it out. Check out this video to find out what you're getting yourself into!

http://www.motoringalliance.com/forums/detailing/2825-how-polish-octaneguy-way-hd-video.html

 

A very mild solution of baking soda and water will neutralize the acids of the bird poo. Even if the area looks good after polishing, the acid will continue to etch itself into the paint and return later with a vengance if it's not neutralized first.

Any good polish will remove the stain if you apply some good old fashioned elbow grease. The clay bar will also work well.

If you remove the stripes at this point, it's not very likely you'll be able to eliminate the shadow effect that is bound to be there after five years. Replacing the stripe would be the best option stopping short of respraying the bonnet.

 

Just so you know it only takes about 10 seconds for bird poo to etch your paint. With 4 to 5 hours and probably sunlight adding to it, chances are you have some deeper etchings, though not necessarily irreparable, just deeper than something that sat for a few seconds and was washed off.

Honestly clay bar will do very little about etchings. Clay removes bonded contaminants and etchings are.

The upper right corner of this image shows what a bird poo etching magnified 400x looks like. They looks like craters or pock marks.



Note that applying a wax won't "remove the marks". It has the potential to mask them if the wax contains enough fillers, but the only way to "remove" an etching is to level the paint through machine polishing or a combination of wetsanding and polishing.

Prima has 4 polishes.
Prima Cut
Prima Swirl
Prima Finish
Prima Amigo

These are listed in order of most aggressive to least. It's possible that Cut with a yellow or orange pad on a PC will help you, but it doesn't sound like you have a PC (Porter Cable Dual Action Random Orbital Polisher), so the Prima advice or any polishing advice won't really apply.

Banana Gloss is an excellent wax with fillers in it that might marginally improve the etchings. I found some bird poo on my black roof last week, and lightly sanded it with 2500 grit paper and buffed it out so it's perfect now. Can't do that too many times though, but I knew what I was doing since I'm a Pro.

Cleaning 5 year old stripes? That's really past the life of outdoor vinyl. You're not going to find an effective way to clean them. Replacing them is better. Stripes can be improved through polishing. I'd use a PC with a white pad and Prima Swirl. But again without a polisher, you can't do that.

Richard
(Resident Paint Guru)

 

If you are going to polish the paint, I would wash and clean the area first, and possibly use a paint cleaner like Prima Amigo as an interim step. You're not going to have any further issues with "acids" from the bird poo if you've thoroughly prepped the paint.

I would disagree that clay bar would remove a stain, unless the stain was not a physical etching but contamination that wasn't being removed through cleaning.

Also, the "shadow effect" is most noticeable on metallics. A greater reason for this existing is that the paint under the vinyl hasn't been subjected to abuse or neglect so it looks better than the exposed areas. Polishing can greatly minimize the difference to the point it will be very subtle.

Richard

 

I'm a firm believer that having a good quality sealant/wax applied, will help prevent bird poop, and most other contaminants from hurting your paint.

Mark

 

Bird poo etchings are NOT a MINI specific issue. This happens on any vehicle but the thing is that we're not as crazy about the paint finish on most other cars so we don't notice them as much. Etchings are especially visible on dark colored cars.

Here's a red 2004 BMW that I polished out, two weeks later it came back for a wash, and I found this new etching from bird poo..the car sat at the dealership for repairs one day.

 

Question.
My MINI gets hit with all kinds of bird crap, sometimes it is washed off as soon as I see it, sometimes I look at it for days before removing it, and I have never found an etching from bird poo, how come?

Mark

 

I've found that it makes a huge difference what kind of food those birds are eating. Here in the city, the worst are the pigeons feeding off the burger restaurants. Their poo is caustic.

Consider yourself lucky never having to deal with etchings, lol. For me, if they occur, a little wetsanding takes them away, but that's just me, lol.

Richard

 

Does not seem to matter if the poo is from city birds, or their country cousins:lol:

Poco has been hit with everything from pigeon guano, to fishy pelican anal slop, to finch feces, plus splattered the odd full bird, no lasting effects

Mark

 

It sounds like the word is out. The birds have seen how much time you spend waxing Poco and apparently you are on their "hit list". LOL

 

I think all those coats of protection are what keep the bird poop from harming the paint.

Mark

 

I avoid parking under trees at all cost

 

When I did my MCS a couple of weeks ago, the hood had a few poop etchings.

But a little time with the PC and Swirl removed every single one of them.

As we'll be heading for the Outer Banks in a few weeks I think I'll subscribe to lotsie's premise that the extra layers of protection are doing just that.

So, I'll be applying Epic a couple of more times before we go.

 

Has worked for me

Problem with Pelican poop, is they don't sit in trees, and it's big poop:lol:

Mark