The World and salting roads

[Jetronic]

Originally Posted By: grampi
Originally Posted By: FordBroncoVWJeta
If I ever become president. I would ban road salt. It justs eats up cars and is a waste of tax payer money. If you want to drive 80mph right after it snow, well I believe in natural selection.


I'm with you on this...they could put down sand and make the roads passable, and save everyone A LOT on vehicle rot...but I'm sure someone will chime in and tell us why salt MUST be used...


GM/FORD/FCA would be in trouble...

 

[Kuato]

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Originally Posted By: Kuato
Good question, I'll be interested to hear from those in other countries.

Have a friend works for the WV Department of Highways. There's a choice other than salt, they did a study. It does not corrode cars, highway signs, hurt the environment or anything bad that salt does. Problem is, it is 3x the cost of the salt. However their study indicated that if the ecological damage, roadside sign damage, and car damage were added up, it would be FIVE times the cost. I'd gladly pay another $50 a year to register my vehicle if they used the non corrosive stuff; but at this point it's simple state economics....salt costs less UP FRONT - which is all the budget "cares" about.


The idea of someone from WV mentioning about environmental damage of a product when other more expensive options exist is hilarious.

It would be a job killer in the salt producing states..... just ribbin'.

True. Mines and associated runoff, chemical production, explosive production (ever heard of a town called Nitro?) and more make parts of WV a mess.

 

[edyvw]

So to throw my take:
I am originally from Bosnia, cam ehere in 2005.
We have summers that could go up to 115 degrees and winters, well I skied there at -42c. Lot's of snow, rain, sun. Bosnia is only European country with rain forest.
Anyway, on November 15th by the law you have to have snow tires. It is mandatory, otherwise in best case scenario you will pay fine, in worst they will kick you out of traffic until you get tires (also, they have to be 4mm deep at minimum).
We also have one of the largest salt mines in Europe as consequence of Panonian sea withdrawing few million years ago.
So, abundance of salt+ strong winters and maintenance crews have a blast! Fortunately, salt is of very good quality so it is very fine, so no big issues with windshields, but low quality cars are under attack. German cars fare by far the best including of course, Volvo. Japanese cars, ehhh, depends, but I found some are prone to corrosion.
In Colorado they salt and treat with chemicals. I found out that salt in Bosnia is much better then one used here. Here in CO salt is not as refined, so cracked windshield are very often. Also, they sometimes treat it with chemicals, but not during large storms. I have not seen eaten aways cars like in Bosnia, and I think it is bcs of very low humidity in CO.
But, biggest issue I have here in CO is that snow tires are not mandatory. I just cannot believe sometimes what storms shut down roads because people think all season tires are good for 1-2ft of snow.

 

[Shannow]

We have salt at work for the paths in cold/icy conditions, but it's rarely used for roads.

They DO use it between here and Bathurst a couple of times per year.

If I dropped a KG of the stuff at the side of the road near a drain, it's an environmental offence.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: edyvw
Here in CO salt is not as refined, so cracked windshield are very often.


You sure it's not from sand? Up here, "sand" is anything an inch in diameter and down.

Ok maybe not that bad, but I suspect there is quite a bit of quarter-inch sized stuff that gets spread. Or otherwise gets onto the road; just last night I whacked by something good sized on the way home. Really amazing how few windshields I've lost, usually I want to replace due to pitting.

 

[edyvw]

Originally Posted By: supton
Originally Posted By: edyvw
Here in CO salt is not as refined, so cracked windshield are very often.


You sure it's not from sand? Up here, "sand" is anything an inch in diameter and down.

Ok maybe not that bad, but I suspect there is quite a bit of quarter-inch sized stuff that gets spread. Or otherwise gets onto the road; just last night I whacked by something good sized on the way home. Really amazing how few windshields I've lost, usually I want to replace due to pitting.

Actually it is both!
Sometimes they use strictly salt, still flying around. Sometimes they mix and you have a feeling you are on firing range.
Compare to Bosnia here there is much higher saturation of plows. But expectations are different. In Bosnia everyone has snow tires, so attitude is: well it snows, so what? Her it is like: OMG, I pay taxes and road is not dry?
On other hand, in Bosnia side walks are cleaned pretty fast, in Colorado Springs we use sun to clean side walks.

 

[finmile]

Here they do put salt on the roads every winter, but the focus is mainly on the main roads and at cities. On rural roads they only plow the snow off of the roads and put sand.

We are obligated to use winter tires by law from the beginning of December to the end of February and in practice we need winter tires from mid-November to mid-April at South of Finland and at North of Finland even longer.

About 80% of the cars have studded winter tires and 20% have non-studded winter tires. Because of the studs it is safe to drive also on icy roads, if you drop the speed enough.

We have mandatory yearly safety inspections for all the cars and if the inspector sees some rust at the body of the car he pokes it with a metal spike. And if that spot is too soft and at the supporting structure, you have to get it repaired, i.e. cut the rusty part off and weld some new metal there. My estimate is that on average it takes about 15-20 years for a car to get to this point even with the factory rust proofing only. There are some models however to which you must start to do weld repairs already at 10 years because the factory rust proofing is so poor. Mazda 6 is a good example for this.

 

[MNgopher]

I'll put it this way - in a comparison of salt damage only, I'd buy a Colorado car in heartbeat before I'd buy one here in MN. (Other concerns of course, but if that were the only one...)

While Colorado does use some salt, particularly on mountain passes, they depend much, much heavier on the use of mag chloride liquids, and when needed a salt/very heavy sand mixture (except in the Denver metro area due to air pollution concerns). They do use straight salt products in limited situations.

As an example, family members there routinely have no issues with steel wheel corrosion, where the steel rims in use for a decade here look terrible. The Colorado vehicle I did bring back brought oohs and ahhs about how good it looked, while mechanics in Colorado always commented how bad the rust was on my Minnesota vehicle...

 

[edyvw]

Originally Posted By: MNgopher
I'll put it this way - in a comparison of salt damage only, I'd buy a Colorado car in heartbeat before I'd buy one here in MN. (Other concerns of course, but if that were the only one...)

While Colorado does use some salt, particularly on mountain passes, they depend much, much heavier on the use of mag chloride liquids, and when needed a salt/very heavy sand mixture (except in the Denver metro area due to air pollution concerns). They do use straight salt products in limited situations.

As an example, family members there routinely have no issues with steel wheel corrosion, where the steel rims in use for a decade here look terrible. The Colorado vehicle I did bring back brought oohs and ahhs about how good it looked, while mechanics in Colorado always commented how bad the rust was on my Minnesota vehicle...

Take into consideration that in CO humidity is extremely low.
Also, we have more then 300 sunny days. Snow melts FAST! So there is no need to treat roads for a long time since roads will be dry in day or two and ice is non issue after that.
However, be aware of CO cars when it comes to general state of suspension. CO roads are bad due to huge temperature differences. During the day after snow storm it could be 60, melts snow, freezes over night and water that goes under pavement due to icing starts to expand. On top of that roads are on sandy soil.
After roads I saw in Albania, I think CO roads are the worst I have ever driven on.

 

[SLCraig]

I hate the stuff. It's why I drove a winter beater for the last 2 winters. I really don't want to ruin my SI. Anyway.. I KROWN my cars annually and that's about the only thing aside from not driving them that can keep them as mint as they could possibly be in salted road areas.

In any cars I've owned where I've gotten on top of KROWN applications early, I've never had any rust issues.. And I really don't want any either!!

 

[Pop_Rivit]

Originally Posted By: FordBroncoVWJeta
If I ever become president. I would ban road salt.


Fortunately for the rest of us there is no chance of that happening.

 

[oilpsi2high]

I'll take salt and rust over a totaled car any day of the week. It's not us, but rather people who drive on bald tires who can't stop and cause accidents that wreck cars.

 

[ChristianReske]

Here in Germany, they salt the roads and use sometimes fine loose gravel.

They use the salt mainly in towns, main streets throug the country and the Autobahn, of course.

Smaller roads are only plowed, sometimes not, sometimes only scatterd with fine loose gravel.

The use of proper winter tires is mandatory by Law. Surprisingly, this law is relatively new. But the average german car driver dont know the importance of good tires and is stingy in buying tyres, so the law was neccesary to safe other people from these .. &%$§(/ .. kind of people.

So, the cars here are rusting after some years. If you want to keep your car for a long time or simply rustfree you just dont drive it at winter.

 

[edyvw]

Originally Posted By: ChristianReske
Here in Germany, they salt the roads and use sometimes fine loose gravel.

They use the salt mainly in towns, main streets throug the country and the Autobahn, of course.

Smaller roads are only plowed, sometimes not, sometimes only scatterd with fine loose gravel.

The use of proper winter tires is mandatory by Law. Surprisingly, this law is relatively new. But the average german car driver dont know the importance of good tires and is stingy in buying tyres, so the law was neccesary to safe other people from these .. &%$§(/ .. kind of people.

So, the cars here are rusting after some years. If you want to keep your car for a long time or simply rustfree you just dont drive it at winter.

Numerous times I have been in Germany, just visiting friends or business i actually think people in Germany have by far best tires on cars.
I was test driver for a car magazine, and I have this OCD thing to look at peoples tires at parking lots or gas stations. I must say, Germans by far are best in that.