Can this be removed (bird poop etch with pics)?

[EnzianF90]

Hi all! Bird poop etch on hood of a 2019 VW Tiguan. I tried Adams compound and polish with all its pads and my Swirl Killer. Tried a more aggressive cutting compound from Meguiars, too. Is this through the clear and hopeless or do I need to go for something more aggressive? Excuse the dust around the etching car was dirty when I took photo this morning. Thanks! 

Edited January 2, 2021 by EnzianF90

[falcaineer]

First, welcome! 

 

Sadly, if it's etched through the clear, looks like it is, you're looking at sanding, at least, if not a redo on the clear coat. Consider taking it to a paint shop for a second opinion.

 

[Chris@Adams]

It looks deep, does your finger nail catch in it? If so it's too deep to remove however you may be able to make it look a little better  with machine polishing.

[Dan@Adams]

Hi @EnzianF90

 

Unfortunately this type of bird dropping looks like it has etched the clear coat to the point that it has fractured the clear, which looks like small cracks and ripples in the clear coat. Bird droppings can be very acidic and can damage a clear coat in as little as a few hours if left on the surface or out in the hot sun. The acidic dropping eats through the clear, and the acid penetrating combined with the heat from the sun causes it to web outward - almost like how you will see a crack in a windshield enlarge and split out in different directions with extreme heat or cold, just on a much smaller scale. This example looks similar to what is known as "crow's feet" clear coat failure; however with crow's feet, it is a problem that is usually in a large area of a panel or sometimes an entire panel due to the cracks spreading from improper prep of the area (or from a repainted area that may not have been prepped very well).  

Polishing the area like you did can make it look better and reduce the appearance somewhat like Chris mentioned, but from looking at those pictures, the etching/cracks in this spot are most likely through the entire clear coat portion of the paint job, down to the base coat. So if you continue to compound and polish it, you could get down to the base coat before the cracking is fixed, and then you would have a bare paint spot that will be shiny but look different than the rest of the vehicle (I did this before being greedy with sanding a scratch on my project truck). Our Scratch & Swirl Remover has a fine grit abrasive to it, but I don't think it will fix this 100% in this particular case - if it was staining and discoloration from bird droppings, I usually have good luck with repairing that to near 100% fixed though.

In this case, you will most likely need to sand down the area and spray new clear coat, blending it in as evenly as possible. Painting is not in my skill set, so I agree with falcaineer's suggestion and would have a paint/body shop take a look at it like. If you want to hold off on body work, protecting the area with a sealant or ceramic coating would prolong the amount of time before it would potentially become worse, so it comes down to if it's in a very noticeable area of the hood that will bother you, or if you can tolerate it for the time being and try to hide it some with sealants and so on. If it was me, since my area is very cold in the winter months, I would wait until it warms up some if I had to go with the repaint option.

[EnzianF90]

Thanks so much for the detailed response @Dan@Adams (and @Chris@Adams and @falcaineer). Super helpful. The spot is rather small (like a nickel) and hard to notice on our “kid hauler” which gets beat up and parked outside all the time so it doesn’t bother me too much if it has to stay, though the idea of it growing concerns me.
 

After I corrected and polished the hood to try to remove the etch I applied Ceramic Boost so maybe that will help preserve it as is. I’ve toyed with the idea of some 2000 grit sandpaper (saw the video where Adam uses it on the Bentley) just to see if it’s an improvement but I definitely am not looking to go to the base coat or end up at a body shop. That sounds scary. 

[Dan@Adams]

20 hours ago, EnzianF90 said:

Thanks so much for the detailed response @Dan@Adams (and @Chris@Adams and @falcaineer). Super helpful. The spot is rather small (like a nickel) and hard to notice on our “kid hauler” which gets beat up and parked outside all the time so it doesn’t bother me too much if it has to stay, though the idea of it growing concerns me.
 

After I corrected and polished the hood to try to remove the etch I applied Ceramic Boost so maybe that will help preserve it as is. I’ve toyed with the idea of some 2000 grit sandpaper (saw the video where Adam uses it on the Bentley) just to see if it’s an improvement but I definitely am not looking to go to the base coat or end up at a body shop. That sounds scary. 

You could try 2000 grit. It's fairly tame, especially if you don't use any pressure, but then I would follow up with 2500 and 3000 so that you can remove the sanding scratches more easily. Just make sure to keep the sand paper flat and even and sand in only one direction (left/right or up/down, but not both). Since it's a 2019, there should still be plenty of clear on there. I just recently did paint correction and Graphene Ceramic Coating on two 2020 Tiguans for good friends in a relationship (he was in a very bad wreck and needed a new vehicle since his car was totaled, and she was shopping for a new vehicle too, so they bought two in one day!) Her silver one had two bird bomb stains on the hood that I reduced about 75%, but even with a One Step Pad and our old Heavy Correcting Compound on the Swirl Killer Mini at speed 6 wasn't enough to fully remove them. She couldn't see them until I specifically pointed them out, so she told me not to worry about sanding them.