Well, dang it, the stupid funnel filled up too quickly while you were pouring in your 10W-30, and some spilled, missing the drip pan you'd set down. Act fast if you don't want that fresh premium synthetic to turn into an unsightly oil stain on your garage floor or driveway. You could call professional cleaners, but since you're already a DIYer changing your own oil, why give them the satisfaction — or your money? You can get that oil up yourself with one of many classic methods, or some approaches you've probably never heard of or considered, or that will make you scratch your head when you read them.
You've heard of using kitty litter, where you use fresh litter (and we emphasize fresh, unused litter) to absorb the spilled oil, then scrub with baking-soda-and-dish-soap paste. If you don't want to use litter, polypropylene absorbent pads are around $10 a pack and better at oil spill suckage, anyway. But this is the internet, and there are so many DIY solutions, "life hacks," old wives' tales, superstitions, rumors, AI hallucinations, and well-meaning TikTok videos to sift through. Maybe we'll find gold.
Some recommendations in an article from National Concrete Polishing, a company that does concrete resurfacing and floor coatings, include using hydrogen peroxide, white vinegar, or ammonia to clean oil stains. Let the substance of your choice soak into the stain for 20 minutes or so, then scrub and rinse. There, we're off to a good start. These suggestions are a little different from what you'll find on most blogs, come from a company that specializes in concrete, and aren't totally off the wall.
Let's see what's to come. Ah, we'll also cover laundry detergent, WD-40, Coca-Cola, blowtorches, Axe body wash, and mayonnaise. Oh, this is going to get weird.
Read more: Call Me A Luddite, But These Modern Features Only Seem To Make Cars Worse
DIY Methods That Might Work, Maybe (Or Not)
Plenty of sources tout powdered laundry detergent or dishwashing liquid. The Abbotts At Home DIY & Home YouTube channel tried both with plenty of scrubbing after leaving them to soak for 30 minutes. The results were aggressively mediocre. Next, a video from the YouTube channel Aksmaniyak — DIY Kayak and Boat Modifications preaches the power of toilet-bowl cleaner with bleach. After squirting cleaner on the stains and letting it sit for three hours, the stains came up with some spritzing from a garden hose. Have we got a winner? Well, YouTube channel Mr. Gizmo tried toilet cleaner with bleach, and the stains remained.
In Reader's Digest, you'll find techniques using oven cleaners and WD-40. Many oven cleaners contain lye, which is a degreaser. Degreasers dissolve oils, which is why they can do a bang-up job cleaning oil stains, as shown in a YouTube video from Joe HowTo. WD-40's specialty product YouTube channel, WD-40 Specialist, demonstrates how to remove oil spots from concrete using the brand's specific cleaner and degreaser. However, most oil-spill cleanup blogs suggest regular "lubricates anything" WD-40, originally designed to stop missiles from rusting.
The aforementioned Abbotts At Home video and a Home Repair Tutor video both attempted WD-40 with underwhelming results. This makes sense because Wired analyzed WD-40 in a lab, and there aren't any degreasers in it. When sites push WD-40 as an oil-stain cleaner, they usually also recommend using cat litter and baking soda, too. That's like saying you can clean your armpits with mustard, but you have to use soap afterward. What do you think is actually doing the cleaning? Besides, Aurora Asphalt & Concrete says regular WD-40 will just make an even more stubborn stain.
Then There's The Truly Unusual
Scott's Garage on YouTube has a video showing Coca-Cola and Dawn dish soap combining forces, and it mostly works! The stain is less noticeable, but Dawn Platinum dish soap is designed to remove grease, so that may be doing the heavy lifting. People will say Coke's 2.8 parts of phosphoric acid (the same amount as battery acid!) is the helpful oil-removing ingredient, and while it fights stains, it also damages concrete.
Against our better judgment, let's go to TikTok for more cleaning solutions that probably won't work. User @whatnooowaaay tried the "blowtorch your stains away" method he saw in another video from Archie5, and as he explains, it works, as long as you consider chipping away the concrete "working." (Warning: foul language.) There are also several references online claiming Axe Body Wash removes driveway oil stains, which raises disturbing questions. If you have some lying around, give it a shot. At worst, your driveway will smell like mangoes or "Dark Temptation."
Tumbling farther down the well: According to Smithsonian Magazine, Israel's National Sea Turtle Rescue cleaned tar off 11 endangered green sea turtles by using mayonnaise, which works because mayo is an emulsifier that can make oil less sticky and easier to remove. I'm not saying it'll work on your driveway, but is it any crazier than WD-40, Axe, or a blowtorch?
Oh, hey, it turns out there are lots of commercial oil-spill cleaning products, like BacKrete's waterless concrete cleaner that uses oil-eating bacteria. There's also Goof Off Concrete Cleaner, which the YouTube channel Mechanical Mind used to completely remove some engine oil stains. Commercial degreasers, tri-sodium phosphate (TSP), and muriatic acid are also reported to get excellent results, but of course, they're all harsh chemicals that require safety gear.
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