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Salt on roads


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So my car regularly gets covered in road salt - and it can often be a few months before I wash it and even 5000 miles upwards - terrible yes I know.

Recently have had a lot of customers with rotten fuel tank and rear subframes and a few instances of sills going

Now I looked under my car with a view that if the sills had started to rot (or the tank or subframe) that would be the end of it but to my suprise all were solid and better than a lot of others that I see.

Now I dont know if its that my car does lots of long runs or the rain from the road washes it off but started me thinking is it really road salt that rots cars (wont do any good I know that) - I know people who live by the coast suffer from the sea breeze bringing in sea water which will ruin a car.

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near the coast does more damage than road salt during the winter.

road salt causes most damage when it clogs up in an area underneath and can fester away......made worse by stone chips under the car

I once bought an escort from a 1 owner who lived by the coast and always parked the facing the same way. entire drivers side of the car was rotten (really rotten) and passenger side was fine :o


just to add, the japanesse get their roads covered in salt during the winter too ;)

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Agree...."Coastal" cars always suffer more.

The fuel tank on my Celi obviously suffered because it was replaced just before I bought the car (2 years ago nearly)...my subframe didn't look bad at all..but it was treated and Hammerited last Autumn nevertheless.

Not really looked at the sills tbh...but I'm hoping they are ok..can't see anything obvious. :shrug:

Fortunately I can choose when I use the car so I try to avoid the worse days.

Don't really know just how susceptible to rot the Celi is.???...but I know I've seen much worse over the years. ;)

Neil

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I once bought an escort from a 1 owner who lived by the coast and always parked the facing the same way. entire drivers side of the car was rotten (really rotten) and passenger side was fine :o

I have a theory that cars in the UK suffer more corrosion on the right hand side due to surface water puddles in gutters which can stretch out onto left hand side of the road, and when driven though the splashing [on what is often only the passenger side wheels] washes the salt back off of the left hand side of the vehicle.

My Corolla was more rusty on drivers side, and my present Celica too plus rear right hand side spring rusted though and broke at 11 years, and 51k miles.

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It is my view that corrosion is caused by a) salt, B) damp and c) temperature.

Drive a car in winter so it picks up salt, leave it damp, then stick the car in a warm (relatively!!) warm garage where there is little air circulation and, bingo - rust.

My motorcycle is washed when it comes home dirty, left outside to dry and then put in the garage - no corrosion

Edited by trophytr5
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I have a theory that cars in the UK suffer more corrosion on the right hand side due to surface water puddles in gutters which can stretch out onto left hand side of the road, and when driven though the splashing [on what is often only the passenger side wheels] washes the salt back off of the left hand side of the vehicle.

My Corolla was more rusty on drivers side, and my present Celica too plus rear right hand side spring rusted though and broke at 11 years, and 51k miles.

Sound theory. When stripping down the MR2 it was terrible on the driver's side compared to the passenger, did make me wonder.

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Road salt (sodium chloride) greatly accelerates corrosion simply because it is a source of the chloride ion. If you looked at any text book on corrosion it would tell you that chloride is just about the worst contaminant in the everyday world for initiating/maintaining rust. I used to work in corrosion testing and I've seen corrosion test specimens where you could see finger prints (caused by the salt in sweat) on their surfaces even after they been in hot gases for thousands of hours. Remember also that kitchen washing up liquid is loaded with salt and should be kept well away from cars.

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It probably makes little real difference to your car, but the council round your way mostly uses a mix of rock salt and molasses in winter. The molasses sticks the salt to the road, so although it is more expensive than basic rock salt, they use a lot less of it - and the molasses mix is more effective because of the way it sticks to the road (as long as it goes down before the ice) and it is a lot less corrosive to vehicles.

They still use normal rock salt when the roads are already iced up, as there is no point putting the more expensive molasses mix on top of sitting snow.

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One of the other known issues with chloride is that once it is on, it is bloody difficult to wash it off completely (even though you won't be able to see it). Consequently there are products on the market specifically claiming to help remove it, like this stuff from the Rustbuster paint folks http://www.rust.co.uk/4-salt-removal/t16/

I'm not recommending this particular product, simple because I've never tried it. But, I will be doing some painting on the underside of my Gen7 this spring and even after using lots of water to clean it, I probably will use this or something similar before slapping the paint on.

Edited by bazz54
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Yes the drivers side rear does corrode a lot more than the passenger side

The back plates on the rear brakes are always rotten on the drivers side but passenger side are normally good

Also the sills and subframes tend to go on the drivers side

Also sell a lot more drivers side shocks and springs (front and rear)

Drivers side headlights also out sell passenger side headlights (but thats nothing to do with road salt!)

I like the puddle theory - has been bothering me for a while - also ties in with why mine might be ok - lots of wet motorway runs at high speed to wash it off underneath

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