How to clean stubborn oil spills / oil stains from driveway/concrete

my mother’s bmw has been sitting and leaking oil for MONTHS on her driveway (uh oh, is that the US Army invading her driveway?). After selling the car, she has asked me to clean the oil stains, and i used this opportunity to test various driveway / concrete cleaning methods for those stubborn oil spills.

TLDR: chomp pull it out concrete oil stain remover worked the best. scrub it in, use full strength (no dilution)

First, i used this video as a reference point:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e3CgSz9Mow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e3CgSz9Mow)

I divided the oil spill into 3 different sections and used tide + oxyclean maxforce stain remover + boiling water, concrete cleaner (zep), and oil eater cleaner degreaser. i scrubbed them all in, then followed up the treatments with a pressure washer (15 degrees attachment, surface cleaner attachment) after 12hrs.

none of these worked very well. i could still see the stain marks, but lighter & more faded. the oxyclean maxforce stain remover + tide seemed to work the best (more faded and less dark spots than the degreasers / cleaners)

then, i used chomp pull it out concrete oil stain remover. the directions tell you to dilute the product, but given that the oil stains were 6+ months old, i opted to go full strength. the directions also tell you to just pour the solution (after shaking well) onto the concrete and let it sit; just to see if agitation & scrubbing would help, i scrubbed in the solution on half of the stain mark and left the other half alone (no scrubbing).

The next morning, i dusted away the powdered solution and followed up with the pressure washer. the scrubbed section seemed to have gotten rid of the stain marks more + had deeper penetration, but only by a small margin. i’d say the extra 5-10 minutes it takes to scrub in the solution is well worth it if youre trying to achieve the best results in the shortest amount of time.

i followed with a second application of chomp, and the oil stains are 95-97% gone. there are some stubborn spots left, but it’s concrete, and youre never going to get ALL of the oil out.

hope this review / write up was helpful, and good luck with your driveways / concrete!

by mumenrider2020