Rust Belt: Wash my car or wait until spring?

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: dlundblad
Even if the water is recycled, isn't the salt removed through filtration and the reverse osmosis process?

I received a back stage tour of a little car wash in town. 3 bays plus a small automatic thing. The filtration system was huge.


The final rinse is "fresh" water. You have to wet the salt, let it sit and loosen up, then blast it off, and finally rinse.

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
I get a good March rain storm every year and I feel that blasting through puddles and ruts gets my undercarriage as clean as a car wash could, anyway. Talking about a couple-inch rainstorm that pre-rinses all the salt off the roads. I monitor for same, and if I don't get one "on time" I'll break out the hose.


^^^THIS is what we need now to blast all of the salt off of the roads!!!

Supposedly, it is going to be 50*F here on Wednesday, and raining!

Hopefully it will be a HEAVY continuous rain, and not that piddly, light, intermittent mist ****.

I use a 2000 psi power washer to get to the underside any time the temp is above 35*F in the winter.
It's the only thing that BLASTS the d***ed, glued-on, salt soup off!

 

[jacky]

i washed mine today at a coin operated car wash 35 degrees, i was standing in ice and snow, but car was very dirty and hard to see out of the windows

 

[zzyzzx]

I wait until I am sure that all the salt is washed off the roads and there will be no snow again for the season. Then I wash it. This is my winter beater. My good car is not driven no salted roads.

 

[daves87rs]

Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
I wait until I am sure that all the salt is washed off the roads and there will be no snow again for the season. Then I wash it. This is my winter beater. My good car is not driven no salted roads.


Kinda sounds like my other cavalier trapped in the back yard right now. It's been lucky to avoid any type of salt in 95% of it's life....

 

[gofast182]

When the weather warms up just enough, one of the best things you can do is take it for a highway drive in the rain (after the salt has washed off of the road). The water will find its way into all the little places the salt did but your hose can't reach.

Personally, I wash at 33 degrees and up but I also have a hot/cold hose bib outside.

 

[PeterGreen]

Just "washed" my car for the first time in months. Horrible winter here on Long Island for salt and grit. It's raining, so first I scrubbed with a boar's hair brush soaked in Malco wash and wax, then "rinsed" by going over the car twice more after rinsing the brush, then did all the sills and the driver mat with opti clear rinse and micro fiber, then "dried" the car with three more micro fiber cloths, in a light drizzle. The car is shining again, and I am convinced I got rid of at least one package of Morton's salt from the car, between the sills, the underhood, the floor mats and the nooks and crannys. The Collinite I applied last fall still shines!