How to Remove Bugs from a Car

Keeping your car bug-free can be one of the biggest hassles when maintaining your car's appearance. It may often seem like every time you drive you accumulate a fresh batch of bugs on your bumper and windshield. Even more frustrating, cleaning bugs off your car may seem almost impossible at times; some types of bugs, especially the dreaded love bugs, are extremely hard to remove from your car and high pressure spraying will not remove them.

Luckily, there are several options to removing bugs from your vehicle. My favorite choice for cleaning bugs off of a vehicle is to use dryer pads.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Normal dryer pads (such as Bounce dryer pads)
• A garden hose
• Chamois, microfiber, or other lint-free car cleaning towels to dry with

1. Before you begin to clean the bugs off your car, park your car in a shaded area. Because you will be using water to rinse, you do not want to be in direct sunlight or your bugs will be replaced with sun spots, water spots, and swirl marks.

2. With your garden hose, lightly spray the area of your car that needs cleaning.

3. Begin lightly scrubbing in a small area with a dryer pad; you should instantly notice bugs becoming loosened and falling off or becoming attached to the dryer pad. After a few minutes, begin using a fresh dryer pad as necessary.

4. Once you have removed the bugs from one area, spray all of the residue from the dryer pads and bug particles off of your car. If there are any spots left, go ahead and take care of them before you move onto another section.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have covered all affected areas of your car.

6. Once the entire car has been cleaned, do a final spray down to ensure that all bug particles and dryer pad residue is washed off; any remaining residue can leave a nasty mark on your car that will draw just as much negative attention to its exterior as an accumulation of bugs.

7. Using your lint-free car drying towel, thoroughly dry the wet areas of your car. Squeeze it out as necessary and continue until the entire car is dry. This will help to ensure that no residue is left over and that no water spots form.

Tips & Warnings

• Check your bumper, grill, hood, windshield, and even your side-view mirrors for bugs, as well as any other area of your car that faces directly forward.
• Do not scrub too hard with the dryer pads or you risk hurting your paint job.
• Failure to clean bugs off early can cause permanent damage to your paint job that may be impossible to remove.

[cjsroro]

on 5/30/2009 Great tip, dryer pads, Bounce has multiple uses. THANKS! 5*

[johnrapp]

on 5/30/2009 getting bugs in your car is bad enough... getting them out of your car is the pits. thanks for this, 5 stars!

[woot]

on 5/24/2009 I never thought of using dryer pads to clean my car!