Ah, summertime. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming… and the bugs are buzzing. Lots and lots of bugs.
I’m fortunate enough to have a very short commute every day, and therefore don’t typically deal with large amounts of bug splatter, but I recently took my vehicle on a 550 mile road trip and got to experience all the joys of bug season.
The entire front end of my vehicle was coated with a nice layer of bug parts, which was not so pretty. It seems the common practice for most vehicle owners is to scrub the bugs with more force and effort than is used when washing the car. This is not recommended, and not safe!
In order to safely remove the splatter, it is important to have the right products at your disposal to help loosen the bugs so that you are not tempted to resort to using force or excessive scrubbing.
I have had Gtechniq W8 Bug Remover sitting on my shelf for a while now, and I have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to put it to the test.
The directions stated to spray W8 onto the bugs and allow it to dwell for 5-10 minutes.
A liberal amount was dispensed onto the bumper, headlights, hood, and mirrors.
After 5-6 minutes, I took my bug sponge and began to easily remove the bug remains.
There was no scrubbing or force involved, just a few passes with light pressure were needed to remove the majority of the mess. It was impressively easy!
In the end, only a couple of minutes of work was needed to remove the large mess on the front end of my car. I was very pleased with how simple the process was.
An important factor in removing bug splatter is time. My car was cleaned prior to our trip, and then almost immediately upon returning home 3 days later, therefore the bug guts were no more than 3 days old at the time of this review. Due to the acidic nature of bug splatter, it is extremely important to remove this contamination as soon as reasonably possible to avoid the chance of etching the paint. Once the remains have begun to etch into the paint, no chemical cleaner will remove the etching, so it will appear as if the bug splatter is still on the paint, but in reality, it is within the paint. It is also very important to ensure your paint is properly protected to help protect your finish in the even that you cannot remove the bug splatter immediately, although any wax, sealant, or coating can still be penetrated and result in damage to your vehicle if too much time is allowed to pass before the bugs are removed.
GTechniq W8 helped to make quick work of this clean up, and did not seem to have any effect on the hydrophobic properties of the CarPro HydrO2 that was on the vehicle. The product does not have a harsh smell, and is pH neutral, so it is very gentle.
This seems like a great maintenance product to have if you find yourself battling bug buildup regularly, and I do plan to keep some on our shelf to make our job easier. In the end, my only complaint so far is that it does not come in a bigger bottle. I used about 1/3 of the 250 mL bottle in this instance, which makes it fairly expensive to use on a regular basis.