Pbenjay's Blog

Yesterday I told my friend Susan that I was going to try to take some of the black marks left by God only knows who or what on my car as it is parked daily on a City street with WD-40. She laughed!  Well guess who has just gotten the last laugh? That’s right, me – I just came in from my own personal adventure with WD-40.  It WORKED!!!! I started out cautiously (in hopes of success) on the spare tire wheel cover, it had some scrapes, scratches and black marks.  I sprayed on the WD-40 and rubbed the black marks off with a paper towel.  I used a little elbow grease but not much.  Success is not only sweet, it is also a great motivator-so I thought to try using my miracle can on the horrible key scratches that had so hideously marred the passenger side of my car.  When I saw the destruction wrought by some nasty hoodlum and a key, I was sick.  I can’t stand to see my car being nicked and dinged by opening cab doors, bumped by parked cars in the front and rear, and banged into by the sanitation workers as they extricate the trash from the front of our building.  I just can’t adopt a New York City state of mind about the car.  I was brought up in the rural but not country outskirts of a major Connecticut town and our cars were parked in our driveway.  When I was married and living in Connecticut we parked our cars in the garage so coming to New York City and finding out that I couldn’t afford to keep the car in a garage and that it would be parked in all vulnerability on the street was a difficult concept for me to wrap my head around.  And true to my worst fears, over the years, my little Toyota Corolla was binged, dinged, banged and bumped and ended up looking like most cars you see around the City.  A couple of years ago, we traded it in for a used but like new RAV 4.  Soon the paint on the rear bumper was nicked and chipped, then the right rear side panel received a real bang and has a dent there.  I tried not to look at the marks and vowed if I made enough money, I would have the dent fixed and the bumper repainted.  BUT THIS – THIS KEYING OF THE CAR was just heart-breaking.  And it did not take place in front our apartment building where the car is normally parked and is well in sight of our doormen who are on vigil 24 hours a day.  NO, this  evil act happened  when the car was parked down the street and my husband was in the hospital and a dear neighbor did the obligatory moving of the car for alternate side of the street parking (explanation of that particular NYC phenomena is for another blog).  YES I certainly did digress but sometimes the back story is more interesting than the main (but let’s hope not).  I rubbed WD-40 into all of the long and looping key scratches and they are almost invisible!!! Now I’m not dumb, so I know as good as WD-40 is , it can’t put “finish” back on the car where it has been scrape off BUT I do think that the basic oilliness of the product sort of filled in the marks. Maybe they’ll reappear when the car is washed and if they do, I know where we keep the can and I’ll just re-apply :))

1. Lubricates the “fine tuner” screw on stringed instruments
2. Makes rusty piano strings pliable again
3. Lubricates crank motors on antique mechanical phonographs
4. Removes rust from dog tags
5. Lubricates hinges on beer steins
6. Loosens stuck pocket knife blades
7. Loosens stuck buttons on push button calculators
8. Prevents noise on car window tracks
9. Stops squeaks on car doors
10. Removes black marks and light scratches on your car!!


I LOVE WD-40