salt damage?

[Mmar88]

My winter beater is in need of service and I have to drive my beautiful camaro for the next day or two. It's about 40 degrees however the roads are wet and salty. Will driving through the salt do any actual damage. I plan on having it detailed at the beginning of spring

[hunter1660]

You already know the answer....thus the beater

[Ruebernard]

Opt for public trans, if possible while beater being fixed

[xstuntman]

You drive the Camaro in salt and your off my Christmas card list permanently.

[Ace0751]

[X-rated]

Come on you guys!!!! It's just a car, it will wash!

[shibbs]

Originally Posted by X-rated

Come on you guys!!!! It's just a car, it will wash!

What this guy said.

I drove mine an entire winter. I guarantee you that you couldn't tell.

[LuSe4]

Originally Posted by X-rated

Come on you guys!!!! It's just a car, it will rust!

I fixed it for you!

[Ruebernard]

Originally Posted by xstuntman

You drive the Camaro in salt and your off my Christmas card list permanently.

While I wouldn't write you off my Christmas card list, I would wonder what you have started, exposing your pride and joy to salt.....

[lbls1]

Wash your car often, and do an underbody wash with it. I am an advocate of undercoating new cars (especially if its driven during winter), so you may want to look into having that done.

[ChrisBlair]

Go to a touchless carwash that cleans the undercarriage too. Go through a couple times if it makes you feel better, then hand wash it later on.

The car will be fine. Think about it- when was the last time you saw a 'normal' car built in the last 15 years that was rusted out? Those owners do nothing to protect the car. They just drive it. Get ahold of yourselves.

[chef-beavis]

Originally Posted by shibbs

What this guy said.

I drove mine an entire winter. I guarantee you that you couldn't tell.

No offense, truly, but I am a body man, and I could tell. To each there own and they are just a car, but if the OP cares about his enough to own a winter beater he needs to beg, borrow, rent, etc. for a couple days. Driving in that crap once begins a process you can't undo. The non-coated parts under the car and hood will never be the same, and there are many. The finished, painted outer body will be fine. It all the small things that get ruined. If he truly doesn't care, so be it, but if he just don't know let's not BS him.

[ChrisBlair]

...therefore everybody in the panhandle of Florida also needs to panic.

Let's take a deep breath

edit-

That's a nice pic. Guys in my car club used to keep their classics in that condition. They wouldn't drive them in the rain either- any moisture damages the stickers and finishes; debris from the road nicks a powder coated part in the summer and a few puddles later it rusts. To make things easier on their perfect undercarriages, most would trailer their 90+ point cars to the shows unless it was a perfect day and the show was near by.

A street driven Camaro- summer only let's say- will have those finishes damaged to some degree. In the collector car hobby we graded them in 'classes':

Class 0- the national showwinner. A perfect time-capsule, a car that can be used as a reference to restore other cars correctly. Will appear quite similar to the pic.

Class 1- what everybody but a pedantic show car judge thinks a class 0 looks like

Class 2- a class 1 that is driven on the street for six months.

Class 3- what most nice classics are. Not perfect. Not completely original. Some rust. Some stuff missing.


Everybody here thinks they will keep their cars- in pristine shape too- for 20, 30, 40 years. I've owned the same classic car since '89. It's extremely rare to find somebody that has the same car for a quarter century plus. I used to yank the engine each spring to clean it and detail the engine bucket. And what I found was that over the decades the damned thing is gonna rust, snow, salt, rain, shine...

[oldfriend]

Originally Posted by ChrisBlair

Go to a touchless carwash that cleans the undercarriage too. Go through a couple times if it makes you feel better, then hand wash it later on.

The car will be fine. Think about it- when was the last time you saw a 'normal' car built in the last 15 years that was rusted out? Those owners do nothing to protect the car. They just drive it. Get ahold of yourselves.

That's right , they only rust out at 15 1/2