As you may or may not know, there is an insefilitis (sic) scare in the NY area, the illness is being spread by mosquitos. Our brilliant mayor has decided to spray the entire NYC area with bug spray from choppers and trucks. I just heard on the news that this spray can damage the paint on cars. I'm glad they finally decided to let us know about this after 2 weeks of spraying. So get out there and wash your cars, or at least rinse them off.

If I were you I'd be more concerned with what I was breathing in than what is sitting on my car's paint. But thats just me..... Sure glad I don't live there. (no offense)

It's funny how they tell us that it can't hurt you, but the people spraying it are wearing space suits and they recommend you keep your windows closed and stay inside when spraying. Trust me, I am way more concerned about breathing it in.

What are you getting upset about? Down here they spray for mosquitos with DC3s, helos and trucks 2 to 3 times a week with a mixture of Malathion and Diesel fuel. After 23 years I'm still alive and kicking.

Great post. Protective gear worn by applicators is part of mandatory cover-your-butt (literally) regulations by EPA as part of a complex pesticide registration process, which is analagous to drug testing in its rigor. In all fairness to the regulators (and regulations) mixers and applicators are subject to prolonged exposure to concentrated forms of the chemicals, so their protective gear requirements may not be unreasonable, and are certainly not indicative of your risk. If you licked all the pesticide off your A4 after the spray troops went by I'd bet you wouldn't even get an upset stomach. (If you did, it would probably be from the Meguiars).

Thanks to herbicides, rodenticides, and pesticides we're all living to drive our cars. The diseases we avoid are horrific beyond our perception. For instance, check any history of western civilization and really try to visualize the tremendous suffering caused by the Plague, a disease transmitted by rodents. Many pesticides, despite all the paranoid hype, have an absolute toxicity, as applied, that is below or around that of table salt, aspirin, or some vitamins that are critical to our health in some amount.

The average live expectancy of Americans increases every year. It's not all due to advancements in medicine - pesticides play a vital role in directly protecting our health, as the spraying in NY is intended to do, or in indirectly insuring our health by providing us with abundant, cheap, and safe food supplies, something else we all take for granted.

If you think pesticides are a problem, you should pull into the full service island only, hold up a "fill with premium" sign to the attendant, and slip your payment out through a barely cracked window. The benzenes in gasoline are potent carcinogins, and we handle their "application", including inhaling the fumes, on a weekly basis without protest (or even with enthusiasm).

I don't work for any chemical or pesticide companies. I work in the natural resources management field. No apologies, BTW, for the long rant. You all need to hear this.

RPF
..yes, I'm still waiting for my 2.8 Avant QMS, dammit....

I lived through several *months* of spraying while I was an undergrad in LA. Didn't much care about what it did to my 5-year old Civic, but there were plenty of pissed off folks, washing cars 1+ times a week.... Sounds like a good time to use a car cover!

Doug