Cola like residue on hood from Vandal. Please Help!

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I'm out of town and I got a call from my wife today saying that she found some kind of sticky residue on the hood of our car that looks like cola. She called to find out how to clean it up since she knows I don't want things baking onto the surface. After asking more questions I found out she thinks it's been on there since Saturday (2 days ago) because she noticed something wet then before running an errand and thought it was just water from morning due and didn't think much of it. She hadn't driven it sense then until today and now says it seems sticky and brownish like cola. I asked her to not try to clean it off right away because I wanted her to report it to our property manager and possibly the police and insurance (since I don't know what it is and if no damage has been done). I'm also going to call back and ask her to take some pictures. Just last thursday evening I had my bike stolen from this same parking garage, so I'm hoping the police or property management people will start to take this more seriously since there's been too incidents so close together. Man this sucks, I'm not even in a bad neighborhood. I can't wait to get a house with my own garage.



So anyway, if this is cola or something similar any suggestions or pecautions I should have in mind when cleaning this up? I'm coming back in town tomorrow night so I think I'll try to do it when I come back instead of trying to describe to my wife what to do now.
 
Might want to get it off ASAP. Cola is pretty acidic stuff, I'd be worried about it etching my clearcoat.
 
Yardik said:
Might want to get it off ASAP. Cola is pretty acidic stuff, I'd be worried about it etching my clearcoat.
Click to expand...



Good point and I debated if it should wait at all or not. To prevent unnecessary scratching I was going to try to clean it up myself. I love my wife, but the car care thing has been my role so far as she doesn't have nearly as much interest in this as I do. When she called she was actually about to head out to the coin op wash to scrub it down, and I asked if she had any of my supplies with her she said no so I have to figure she was about to hit it with a scarry dirt filled bubble brush. I'm returning tomorrow, and since it's already been on there probably 2 days I'm thinking 3 wouldn't make a difference?



Thanks for the advice both of you. Anyone else?
 
Cola is loaded with phosphoric acid...and it can definitely etch paint....you may be in for some extended polishing. Get out the PC and some mild polish.
 
I agree with Jesstnz. Cola residue will re-dissolve in water so just let it soak for about 10 minutes and it should rinse right off - no need to touch the car. And forget the car was brushes - they'll make more damage than the cola IMO. For dried cola on carpet I've recently been re-dissolving cola and it works great.



Once it's off then you can assess the damage that was done, and then you're into whole different territory.
 
Us old grey's will tell you "that's (coke) what we somtimes used to clean chrome with"



I'd like to think there is no surface damage to the CC but I have my doubts.
 
Strange...I thought I posted a reply here earlier but it doesn't seem to be here.



Anyway, thanks for all the help! When I got back in town I tried kinda a combination of what jfelbab and jesstzn suggested. I put warm soapy (eagle one) water in a bucket, soaked a mf detail cloth and then gently lay it across spots where the mystery substance was. This soaked it right up and you could see brown spots on the cloth. I'd rinse the cloth and repeat until nothing else soaked up. I can't tell that there has been any discoloration or damage to the clear coat. I was looking at it out in the sun today and really can't notice anything (besides a bunch of ugly light scratches/swirls that were there before).





Thanks very much for all the advice. It sucked being out of town and not able to take care of it quickly.
 
I'd be sure to rewax that area if you haven't already done so as I suspect that the wax was removed by the soda.
 
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