Long story short I ran over some white paint on the freeway and now it's all splattered on the lower body of my truck.  Anyone know of anything that I can use to get the paint off without out screwing up my clear coat and original pain job?

Goof Off!

There's a product called "Goof-Off" that is super on things like that.  I also use it for tar, and yes - the infamous pine tree sap.

You can get it at a Home Depot or Lowe's type place.

It will not damage the car's paint or clear coat.

CMOS

Are you insulting me?

Thanks for the help.

Goof off? That stuff eats through plastic! which means it might eat through your clear coat!

When I got yellow paint all over mine, I just scraped it off with my thumbnail. However, that was a bitch (had a lot of it on there).

You might try a clay bar-- professionals use this to remove paint. They used it to remove overspray from my entire vehicle. It also depends on the paint on how easy it will come off-- latex, acrylic, etc... Check out 3M, Zaino, or Meguiar's. In fact, you can email Meguiars and they will probably tell you what to do and what to use. They had me use their paint cleaner once to get rid of a cloud in my clearcoat caused by rubbing too hard with a cloth.

On another note: Meguiars has a basic non-professional clay bar that actually doesn't work too easily, which is how I caused the problem with my clear coat before... Using a clay bar can scratch your paint if you don't know what you are doing, but just read the instructions. Call them and have them give you their BETTER clay bar and also email them for tips on using it-- its really easy if you are doing it right, otherwise its a bitch!

What Energizer said.  A clay bar is the safest way to remove paint overspray.  If that doesn't get it all, you may try a clear coat safe rubbing compound.  Just be sure to wax the area after you remove it no matter which method you use.

Is taking your truck to a paint and body shop and having professional paint apes take care of it out of the question?

If it is traffic marking paint, most of it is water based now, the first thing I would try is a power washer.

I didn't realize you were in the DFW area. I have a couple of the Mequire's products (both claybar types too-- they sent me a professional clay bar and paint cleaner for free since I had problems with their original clay bar), and my bro has a lot of the Zaino stuff. I'm sure we can do a "test" area and see which will work best, maybe even clean it real quick for ya. In the meantime, DEFINATELY email Meguiar's and ask them. I've emailed them before on things like this. Try to tell them what type of paint is stuck onto it in case that matters.

Also, their paint cleaner is a clear-coat safe rubbing compound, although they deny its a rubbing compound. [:)] I also have some 3M clearcoat-safe and non-clearcoat-safe rubbing compounds. Do it by hand or machine. Machine is quicker, but can rip through the paint if you are not careful.

You can also wet sand it, but if you go too far, you can only do so many wipes before it cuts to the paint. Keep that in mind for future scratch repairs, so you know how far you can go.

Speaking of scratches, I have a couple new ones on my bumper cover now, since the dog's claws scraped through my cleacoat! AHH!

When I had yellow highway stripe paint on my Jeep, the reflective kind, it was real thick, and peeled off, with a little work.

Are you threatening me?

[img]http://www.dcs.elf.stuba.sk/~lalis/images/cornholi.gif[/img]

Try some alkyd or acrylic enamel reducer.If the finish is orinal they shouldn't affect it.