Is Salt Really Necessary ?

[HangFire]

Salt only matters if you want to keep your car past 10 years. Most people don't do that.

There are coping mechanisms besides washing. Leave the hot rod in the garage when the salt trucks are out, and drive the beater to work. There's Krown. Back in the 80's, my friends in New England got "hot oil" sprays every Fall. They've been discussed here as well.

 

[HerrStig]

In the Northeast roads are pretreated with MgCl which keeps ice from forming so the plows can scrape down to the pavement. It also eats sheet steel. I have a semi retired 98 Camry which has survived this stew with little rust.

 

[KrisZ]

Yes salt is absolutely needed in bigger cities. Very small towns and other places with small populations that are away from major highways can get by with sand, but any road that seems moderate traffic needs to be salted.

Hence we have rustproofing. It greatly helps with rust and makes working on cars much easier, although a bit messier. Not a lot of people rustproof though because, as mentioned already, not a lot of people are interested in keeping their vehicles for more than ten years.

 

[mightymousetech]

Originally Posted By: HangFire
Salt only matters if you want to keep your car past 10 years. Most people don't do that.

There are coping mechanisms besides washing. Leave the hot rod in the garage when the salt trucks are out, and drive the beater to work. There's Krown. Back in the 80's, my friends in New England got "hot oil" sprays every Fall. They've been discussed here as well.


Around here, it is more like 6 or 7 years.

Personally I don't believe in oil spray/rust proofing. It is bad for the environment, even the "no drip" ones drip everywhere. It protects only some of the metal, and it destroys all the rubber, plastic etc on the car.

 

[fenixguy]

Vehicles rust here (NC Mountains). It's a sad fact of life we deal with. Over 50% of our winter traffic is a) college students (Appstate) or b) skiers; both of which come from non-snowy areas. Therefore, >50% of people on the road during the worst times of the winter have very little experience driving in snow/ice. Can you imagine what would happen with no treatment? I don't have the option to stay home when the weather is bad, I have to be at work and it doesn't take much, if any precipitation to have slick roads when it's below freezing. Sure, I'm confident in my winter driving and have driven plenty of times on unplowed, unsalted roads; I'm not at all comfortable being on the road with everyone else.

So we deal with it. If you are like me and don't like buying/leasing a new car every 2-3 years, you have a "nice" car and a "winter" car. Is it cheaper? Probably not, but at least you can have one car that is rust-free and will look good (if that's important to you) for years. The wife and I drive the Hondas when it's salty and the Frontier will stay in the driveway unless it is absolutely necessary to get it out; it just pains me to put a car I'm making payments on "in the salt".

On a positive note, the two Civics have been "in the salt" all of their lives (as far as I know), they get rinsed off a few times in the winter, and they're holding up great. No body rust and only minimal surface rust in a few places on the undercarriage. In my experience, body-on-frame vehicles (namely pickups and SUV's) will have replacement will be needed.

All that being said, I wouldn't trade where I live for anywhere else in the world. Everyone else has hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, blizzards, droughts, 100+ degree temps, etc... and I'll keep a winter car to drive. We really are blessed with our weather here.

 

[Traction]

I think salt does more damage than it prevents when you add up all the costs of all things destroyed by it from bridges to cars. They even spray it all over when it's not going to snow. Requiring winter tires and slowing down would be so much cheaper in the long run. No matter how much salt they use, people crash all the time anyway.

 

[Chris142]

How much more per hour do shops charge when working on a rusty mess? Some jobs may take 4x as long as they should due to rusted and damaged bolts etc.

 

[mightymousetech]

Originally Posted By: Chris142
How much more per hour do shops charge when working on a rusty mess? Some jobs may take 4x as long as they should due to rusted and damaged bolts etc.


This is normal life for us, rates are the same.

 

[fenixguy]

Beet juice is a great alternative, although it would be many, many years (if ever, I'm not holding my breath) before municipalities and state highway departments would transition over to it. It's more expensive than salt or calcium-chloride, but it's safe for the environment and doesn't damage infrastructure and vehicles. Thus, making it cheaper in the long-term than current de-icing methods. But, as stated already, our wonderful elected officials can only see as far as the next election cycle and would never do anything good for future generations.

So if you live in a place with winter, you deal with road salt or you stay at home.

 

[andyd]

Originally Posted By: mightymousetech
Guess I will chime in, as I live in the municipality with the highest salt use of any region of the world.

Yes, salt is required, yes it will destroy the car. If you want to drive it year round, should get a German car. BMW, MB, Audi, VW etc all have 12 year corrosion warranties, and are the only cars that actually last body wise. Most people with nice cars will also buy a winter beater they don't care about.

You can not use only Magnesium/Calcium salt. It does not work well if you just apply it on top of snow, it can only be used as a pretreatment. Once there is snow on the ground, you have to switch to good ole regular salt.

Sucks being a tech here, everything is seized. We do rear shocks on 1 year old MDX and the lower shock bolts are already seized.
I'm stripping the good stuff off my first 528e. Ive been using a dremel and a 4" grinder as much as I use wrenches.

 

[MNgopher]

As someone who's worked for the evil salt spreading entity, let me bring the other voice to the conversation.

Is Salt Necessary?

My answer is NO, but that depends on what level of service you are trying to provide and what your politicians are willing to accept.

My previous employer would freely state that we used too much salt - but in order to keep our board happy and deal with the mentality of we need bare pavement within 1 hour of it not snowing, we salted like there was no tomorrow.

Is that level of service necessary? No. But the public is conditioned to expect delivery of bare road surfaces quickly. Me, I drive 4wd vehicles equipped with winter tires and would be fine with a lower level of service. But the bald tire, no preparation for winter crew complains louder, so here we are...

Why don't we use beet juice or other deicers? Simply: cost to the taxpayer (direct). Beet juice is 4 times the cost of salt. Most other deicers are 3x the cost. It also has other impacts that are different than current deicers that cause a different set of problems. The deicers used at airports fall into that camp as well. And lets be honest - aircraft also suffer from corrosion issues too.

 

[jeepman3071]

It is needed because people are too stupid to buy snow tires or learn how to drive.

I've driven in a foot of snow on uncleared roads, as well as roads that were glare ice without problems. I just needed to adjust my driving accordingly. Both of these conditions were not just in my 4x4 Jeep either.

 

[SeaJay]

Roads are safer with salt when it snows that without. Lives are saved. (yes, if everyone was a perfect driver this would not be true, but we are stuck with less than perfect drivers). Part of the cost of living in a cold and snowy climate.

Keeping a car garaged to prevent sun damage to the paint is a cost of living in a southern climate.

Pluses and minuses to make the world go around I suppose. Most of us live where the pluses balance out the minuses for what we value the highest.

 

[Rolla07]

Ive never rust proofed my car and started seeing the start of rust this year. Bubbling on the lower rocker panel near the back wheel well. Being over 10 years old, im not too concerned. I will probably try to sand it and repaint to slow the rust as Id like to keep this car going another 5 years if i can.

Yes, id say salt is necessary. I doubt the city will pay more for better options. Cars rusting out requires you buy another car and the govt gets a nice tax payout when you do, so I doubt they want you keeping your cars longer!

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: Chris142
How much more per hour do shops charge when working on a rusty mess? Some jobs may take 4x as long as they should due to rusted and damaged bolts etc.


We pay the same hourly rate, so if a job takes 4x longer, we end up paying 4x more for it, plus whatever extra parts, fasteners that broke, on top of it.

 

[fenixguy]

Originally Posted By: MNgopher
...depends on what level of service you are trying to provide and what your politicians are willing to accept.

Is that level of service necessary? No. But the public is conditioned to expect delivery of bare road surfaces quickly. Me, I drive 4wd vehicles equipped with winter tires and would be fine with a lower level of service. But the bald tire, no preparation for winter crew complains louder, so here we are...


You got it! No one wants their vehicle to rust and will complain about putting their new baby out there in winter (me included), but then they'll be the first to complain to the highway department when they can't get to their bingo game or the dollar store in their town car.

The road I live on is a very low-priority one and we'll be the last to be pushed and salted after a snowstorm. Half the neighbors complain when the road is covered (ex: my mom) and the other half complain when they salt it (ex: my grandparents). There's no way to keep everyone happy so the best bet is to at least try to keep the main roads as safe as possible for the majority of drivers.

 

[cjcride]

Salt, Snow tires and rustproofing.
We need all 3 up here.

 

[totegoat]

Kind of like asking if the pesticides used in Fresno County are needed. I don't know about today, but in years past CA put thousands of tons of salt on highways to kill ice.

 

[jeepman3071]

The problem with salt is it gives a false sense of security. Namely, the person who t-boned me in 2008 who was going 50+ mph on a snowy road and lost control. They assumed the roads were fine because there was salt and sand on the road.

Is it needed? Yes, especially for intersections.

Do we need 4,000 lb piles dumped at every stop sign? No, and it is a huge waste of money.

 

[Lolvoguy]

Originally Posted By: Rolla07

Yes, id say salt is necessary. I doubt the city will pay more for better options. Cars rusting out requires you buy another car and the govt gets a nice tax payout when you do, so I doubt they want you keeping your cars longer!


Ed Zachary!!!