Since I'm in the midst of winter and had to travel over 350 miles this weekend to be with my girlfriend, I collected quite a bit of salt, snow and slush on my TSX. If I were to wash it tomorrow or even the next day, would that be ok? It'd put the salt on there for around 48-60 hours. I'm just curious how harmful the salt is to the paint and how long I should go with it on there. It's pointless to wash now since it's 23 degrees and I have to drive back tomorrow in possibly more salt. Thanks for the future help!

 

It's fine for a few days, as painful as it is to see it all gunked up. Just don't go weeks and weeks without washing it off. It's hard to keep a car clean in the winter, unless of course you live in areas where "winter" doesn't really exist, LOL. In the winter, I usually take the car through one of the dreaded automatic car washes once a month (sooner if it's really dirty) or when there will be a decent stretch of good weather. I prefer to hand wash, but in winter in NJ, it's just too cold.

 

Usually, no matter how cold (I live in TN and winters usually consist of an average of around 35) I like to wash it once a week by hand. Since my TSX is 3 weeks old I've vowed to myself not to ever go through an auto carwash with it no matter how bad. I gave in with my last car and did it about 3 times during the 5 years I owned it. I'll wait until Tues. or so to get a good wash on it. Thanks!

 

It's funny how the winter is. I live over 1200 miles north and quite a bit west of you and we have had no snow for a while.

Since I picked up my TSX mid December, we have had less than 1/5th of an inch of snow fall here total.

Our problems here are probably more similar to Arizona where sand and dust are our issues. (Not complaining though)



Excited

 

NJ got 2 feet of snow dumped on it last weekend....thankfully, I was vacationing in Cancun all last week and totally missed the mess.

I love my car, and neurotic as I am about keeping it clean and in good condition, I will not be caught dead washing it outside under 50 degree temps! Props to all you who do that though!

 

i take mine to one of those touchless car washes during the cold months.

 

We've been lucky in Chicago this year. Although it's about 6 degrees outside right now, up until the last few days we've been in the mid to upper 20s most of the winter, and that's really warm for us. There were even a few days in a row that we were in the 40s, which is unheard of for January in Chicago. I got out to wash my car a few times on those days.

I have the luxury of having access to a heated indoor garage with a floor drain because I'm a fireman and we are able to wash our cars after hours at the fire station. I make very good use of that ability, I wash my car twice a week now.

 

Salt is active as an oxidizer mostly when it's catalised by water. Therefore, is your car gets wet on the road with salt on, it's not the ideal. But if it's dry, even if there's some salt on it, there's not much of a problem.

People tend to think that salt is damaging only on cars by making them rust, but it also is problematic on the roads themselves, although that is another whole different story..

 

Last week the National Post reported a story in which some environmental group suggested that the government (can't remember if it was Canadian or Ontario) mandate the use of snow tires in winter, and abandon the salting of roads. There was, of course, no mention of any sort of driver training to accompany such a move, which leads me to believe that this group's real solution for the environment is to just kill off as many drivers as possible.

 

Obviously, advanced driving techniques seminars should become mandatory, even in the obligation of wearing snow tires on the car. Many toher solutions are viable that could replace salt, just that salt is an easy and cheap solution; as in most cases, also the most harmful.

 

Keep in mind those car washes -- even the touchless ones -- with their high pressure and very strong detergents are probably stripping all the wax off your car too. As long as you get a good coat of wax on the car before winter, I tend to think it's better to do nothing if you cannot wash your car properly (meaning by hand). So far my thinking has worked pretty well on my 11 year old Civic.

 

I got a chance to hand wash it tonight (thanks to a good friend of mine who has a handy dandy water hose and some hot water). Nothing beats a clean TSX!

 

Didn't clean it for 2 months... some salt on the road and on the car... but it washes off when raining or so. And it's difficult to clean your car's underparts.

To my opinion (maybe because i don't like washing) the automatic washing streets are filled with salt water from other cars... and it only pushes the salt further in little holes and so on, I don't like high pressure water washing, is no good.