removing tar

If a lot...kerosene. Just a few spots...Stoner's.

Bill
 
Gasoline/Kerosine or other non-polar solvents will remove it. HOWEVER, care is necessary for several reasons:

1) Gasoline/Kerosine/Diesel/etc. all have significant contents of toxic aromatic compounds. Not only are these extremely harmful to the user should they be inhaled or there be repeated skin exposure but they are bad for clearcoat. They are rarely going to do immediate and obvious damage, but damage they will do and repeated use can result in some horrible visual effects.

2) The above are often highly flammable. If spraying, one can quickly produce explosive aerosols. The danger of this really need not be explained further!

3) Not everything in these things is highly volatile. What this means is you can leave residues on the surfaces which are then extremely tough to remove and can dwell and do further damage.

4) They are totally incompatible with water. Removal is mostly dependent upon evaporation of the volatiles. Rinsing with water is practically useless.

The use of formulated products is snubbed by some but (certainly here in the UK) they often are not much more expensive and will address some of the above. For instance, formulated products typically are much less flammable. They often have emulsifiers which mean the products rinse with water. They often use dramatically less toxic solvents. Personally I would only use petroleum/kero/wd40/etc. except for an emergency.
 
I have become a fan of Trix. Works great on tar along with other elects like iron.
 
If your aren't going for double duty, then stick with Tar-X as TRIX IME is a little runnier and seems to be less rubber friendly than I recall of TarX. TarX is great as you could forget about it and let it dry and all you need to do is wash the area. And with TarX you can dab some on a cloth/applicator and easily dab and wipe away most small areas of tar and or sticky substances. Yet, it is safe to let dwell. For a long dwell time and something that is safe on even clear plastic IME you could try Dodo Juice Tarmalade. It isn't as fast work as but is great for areas where you don't want TarX/TRIX running down a panel and or onto rubber, i.e. tires and weather seals/gaskets.

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