AutoGlym Intensive Tar Remover – Product Review
March 11, 2023
Cleaning your car should be, for the most part, enjoyable. It’s a bit of quality time with your cherished machine, it gives you an opportunity to inspect it in detail and keep on top of it. It’s also nice to, at the end of it all, have a nice, clean classic. However, if you encounter tar, glue or other residue, it can become a frustrating affair. And it’s not just in the case of cleaning. Maybe your restoring, and have tape residue, or old decals, or maybe your car has been splattered by something and you need to clean off what conventional polishes and waxes won’t touch. How do you sort that? With AutoGlym Intensive Tar Remover, that’s how.
The Product
When it comes to cleaning your car, one name you can always trust is AutoGlym. This UK company has been around for nearly sixty years, and has made a name for itself with its premium, always excellent products. This AutoGlym Intensive Tar Remover is no exception. It boasts the ability to remove tar, adhesives, grease, wax, oils and even silicone. It leaves you with a clean, uncontaminated surface on which you can confidently apply finishing products like polish and wax. Well, that’s what it says. But can it actually do that? We tried it out.
The Test
We came to test AutoGlym Intensive Tar Remover by accident. Bringing some life and love to a once decal-laden, farm-find Vauxhall Calibra, we needed to get all the glue and residue off so that we could polish and clean it. A trip to Halfords yielded a few bottles of this. Apply it to a sponge, coat the area you want treated, and let it sit. Use more for heavy areas, and then the old sticker glue just balls up and comes away. We tried it on oily bits of the engine bay, too, and sure enough it pulled the stains away.
The Result
It left the forgotten Calibra looking great in readiness for it’s first coat of wax in over a decade. It’s got a strong smell, though, so be wary of that. And you can quickly go through a bottle. But, it does what it says it does, and it does it well. We’ve also used it to get stubborn road tar off wheels and the lower flanks of our cars, and it works brilliantly. Though unlike the press image above, it’s best to use an applicator, not just squirt it at the car.
The Verdict – 5 Out of 5
Like Cuprinol, it does what it says on the tin (bottle). It’s cheap, it works quickly and it makes incredibly light work of everything it claims to be able to shift. The main thing is to be patient – it’s not a wipe on then immediately wipe off product – give it time to soak in and do its thing, and you’re laughing.
