Learn me road salt

I live in the Northern suburbs of Chicago when at home, and central Illinois (Bloomington) while at school.

Salt sucks. If you have the means (if you have any space to park the damn thing, unlike I do), you get a winter beater and park your nice car the whole winter.

It took a friend and I 3 hours to remove a brake rotor due to the rust.

All of this said, I wouldn't leave the midwest for almost anything. I love winter. Got the snowtires on the Miata today, hardtop is also going on today. Hockey season is in full swing (I just ref nowadays) and when it gets snowy enough, I'll be sledding too.

petegossett wrote: In reply to novaderrik: But that only works if ambient temp warms to near-freezing. To the OP - two words: Winter Beater.

so true. winter beater and store anything you care about. salt sucks, i parked next to an 07 ram at home depot a few weeks ago with rot holes over the rear wheels.

mad_machine wrote: roadsalt is bad.. what is the stuff they use around here now. They spray it down BEFORE the snow?

I think that is calcium chloride.

It's a great excuse to buy a fun, crappy beater though. Plus, where there's salt, there's ice and snow - also fun.

bravenrace wrote: In reply to DrBoost: Me too. In fact, as soon as I retire I'm outta here. As it is, I now buy most of my used vehicles in the south and bring them up. But that only works if you don't drive them in the winter. Otherwise, they start rusting pretty much immediately once the salt hits. I bought a used but clean GMC pickup last year. It was from out of state. I oil sprayed it, I put mud flaps on it, I put step bars on it and then made shields to protect the rocker panels (since ALL GM trucks around here 4 years old or older have rusted out rocker panels), and put it up on my lift almost once a week and pressure washed it. I don't have any pics of it right now, but I'll be replacing the rocker panels and two door bottoms this winter. It's sickening, and very expensive, especially if you can't do the work yourself.

Yeah, I learned that lesson the hard way. I picked up a CLEAN CJ-7 from down south. Rust free and sweet. Within a year it was rusting in all the typical CJ places. I'm not sure if being treated like this had anything to do with it......

In reply to DrBoost:

Is that at the Mounds?

Road salt now with more beet juice...

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-04/news/ct-x-n-salt-20110105_1_road-salt-beet-juice-mike-eulitz

NOHOME wrote: I have the car oiled every October.

I am unfamiliar with this process....please explain?

pete240z wrote:

NOHOME wrote: I have the car oiled every October.

I am unfamiliar with this process....please explain?

Drive car on Pa Turnpike, it will seal the fenders, wheel wells, undercarriage, wheels, brakes, tires....

Before I became hopelessly addicted to this forum, I genuinely believed that rust on automobiles was a thing of the past. The only cars that rusted were those built in the 1970's or before, and that sometime during the 1980's manufacturer's figured out how to coat and paint car bodies and parts so they wouldn't rust before the motor blew up and the wheels fell off.

Moved from Ohio to SoFla in '77. Had a really nice '73 Cutlass S. Car was good when we left Ohio. DISINTEGRATED in a year in Florida. Super humid, high temps, left over salt, I don't know, but it was really bad, and in strange places, like around the windshield and back window. We do not see rusted cars here unless they came from the Frozen Northlands.

My Mk2 16v GTI lived 4 years in Cleveland with salt and several years in the Boston area with salt. No rust and it was my daily driver.

Newer cars are not as prone to rust as much . I had a 2000 ZX2SR and a 2002 Jeep Liberty. Both were driven on winter roads in upstate NY. Neither had any body rust when I got rid of them last year. I just took them to the car wash regularly.

iceracer wrote: Newer cars are not as prone to rust as much . I had a 2000 ZX2SR and a 2002 Jeep Liberty. Both were driven on winter roads in upstate NY. Neither had any body rust when I got rid of them last year. I just took them to the car wash regularly.

That doesn't account for what happens to every bolt on the udnercarriage/suspension that will corrode, corrode, corrode. A beater is the only way to fly if you have a car you want to preserve. Otherwise, put a good coat of wax on it before the winter and give it a good polish/detail after the winter. Wash off the undercarriage as often as possible, but once you drive on a wet, salty road again, it'll be cruddy in a minute.

Woody wrote: You will begin to use anti-seize where you once used Loctite.

That sums it up.

I have lived in a salt state before. I won't again, just can't do it. I don't mind the cold, I actually enjoy driving in the snow. I hate road salt with a passion!!!

Bryce

it's a slight tangent from the topic of this thread, but i always get a kick out of the idiots that line up at the automatic car washes when it snows out.. they don't wait a few days for the nasty salty slushy stuff to go away- they wash their cars and then drive thru the salty slushy stuff on their way home from the car wash, sometimes while the snow is still falling. then they park the car in a heated garage that keeps the salt nice and wet and lets it react with the steel. i'd bet that these people are the ones that have the most rusty 5 year old cars- and they appear to be the majority..

if i'm driving a car that i actually give a crap about, i'll wait a few days after it snows to wash it off..

I do so many miles I just wash it when I'm near a car wash.

Just make sure they wash the underside and I wash the door and trunk sills when its clear.

Do it all regularly.

Salt blows chunks

pilotbraden wrote: In reply to DrBoost: Is that at the Mounds?

Man, yer good! The second pic is the mounds, the first was a place in Wixom that was developed. It was GREAT!

Salt sucks.

Hence my crappy $400 Subaru, and the cover on my Miata.

Death sentence. Your car will die a horrible death. There's a reason we have what's called a "winter beater."

Not only does the salt literally eat your car alive, it's a special treat to drive on a freshly salted road behind a SUV and have your car pelted with salt pebbles so it can also chip your paint.

Better still is driving on a two lane road with a salt truck coming in the other direction laying down salt. In Michigan they use little spinner wheels on the back of the truck that will throw the salt across both lanes as they drive. So you are driving say.........40 mph, the truck is driving the same in the opposite direction and you get hammered with a wall of salt across your hood and windshield that you can not avoid.

Don't even get me started on the resulting pot holes and frost heaves.

Bottom line: drive a beater and park your good car.