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We all know the story. Having had your pride and joy vehicle valeted you decide to park up and pop into a shop in a leafy, tree-lined street. You are gone only moments to buy a paper though when you return, there, in the middle of your windscreen or sitting slyly on the bonnet of your car, is a deposit from a bird who is wryly smiling down from the tree above.

Now, if the poo is fresh, then it is relatively easy to wipe off, preferably with one of Autoglym’s Bird Dropping Wipes, but what if the offending article has been on your car for some time, or the weather hot and all sign of moisture in the bird poo has disappeared and it’s virtually concreted onto the bonnet?

The problem here is that, due to the acidity and content of bird poo, it can be both corrosive and also scratch the surface of your layered paintwork which can cause both a bleaching and scratching of the final surface. The longer that the bird poo is allowed to sit on the car surface then the more corrosive and damaging it can become.

In truth it is not usually the paint that is initially damaged, rather it is the lacquer (a clear or coloured varnish) that become initially damaged. The lacquer, which if the final layer in the curing process of car paint finishes, dries to form a hard, durable finish. As lacquer is to an extent flexible, in the heating and cooling that one gets in day to day useage of a car, the lacquer expands under heat and then when the car is still overnight, where it is generally cooler, the lacquer contracts and pulls in elements of the bird poo and hardens, thereby trapping the offending deposit. The greater the heating and cooling, the worse this gets, and the longer the bird poo is in place, the worse the damage can become. Eventually this damage is visible to the naked eye as the area appears dulled and, in most cases, etched.

carvalet.co.uk, the UK’s leading mobile car valet operation for prestige vehicles, believes that the best way for customers to rid a car of corrosive bird poo is to:

1. Act quickly – the longer the bird poo is sitting on the surface of a car the worse the damage will eventually be

2. If still damp, remove carefully with a wet, soft cloth or Autoglym Bird Dropping Wipe

3. If the bird dropping is dried, cover the offending deposit with a wet cloth and leave for half an hour

4. If you have one, use a pressure washer to blast away the bird poo and then use a wet cloth to wipe away any remains and buff with a soft, dry cloth

5. If a pressure washer is unavailable then wipe away the bird poo with a wet cloth and then dry with a soft, dry cloth

6. Dispose of any dirty cloths and wash your hands as bird droppings, apart from being corrosive to cars, can also harbour disease

Russell Meadows, MD of carvalet.co.uk, says “Bird droppings is a common problem for our customers, and it is one that we are knowledgeable in dealing with. As many of our customers have prestige cars they do not wish the paintwork damaged so we ensure that these corrosive deposits are dealt with in the right manner so that the paintwork is as little disturbed as possible. We recommend that customers safely remove bird droppings as soon as practicably possible, and in our car valeting services we use only quality cleaning products and cloths to ensure a pristine finish each time. As part of our valeting service we look at paint correction. In this way, combined with our knowledge of both how to maintain a vehicle to its pristine condition and also the problem areas to take care on, including bird droppings, carvalet.co.uk is able to work as efficiently and effectively on a vintage Rolls Royce as on a brand new Maserati”