Having lived in the south my whole life I am curious what you do for winter cars?

I make the assumption that no one drives their classic car during the winter due to salt and brine… or is it safe to do so if the snow melts for a few warm days?

I watch south main auto repair a lot on YouTube and he is in upstate New York. You see cars and trucks on his show that are 5-8-10 years old and destroyed with rust.

Is it part of your budget to just trade in cars every few years ? Do you keep a beater for snowy days. Do you have fantastic heated car washes to keep the undercarriage clean?

I don’t have a nice daily driver but if I did I would hate to then have to drive a clunker for a big part of the year.

I was just curious how you manage it.

 

I spent a few years in Wisconsin when olds64 was about four years old and they had heated water car washes with undercarriage cleaning options (sprayers from below) because of the salt brine. Some places they use an extract from beets I think instead of salt but it may still be bad for our classic cars. Yes, there are lots of beaters up north but not sure if they are daily drivers in lieu of driving their classics or just what they have in general. I think generally if you have a classic and care about it you put it away for the winter period. I don't think that a few days of warmer weather that melt most of the snow would be an option either as all that junk is still on the road and in the gutters low spots on the road.

 

My wife’s car is much nicer than mine and I’m driving it this week. Already I find myself using the heated seats and the nav system. The blind spot monitoring and radar cruise.

I'm telling myself i could go get something nicer a little newer but of course everything costs money

I would hate to spend a bunch of money on something nice-ish and then not get to drive it half the year

 

Matt if you could find something nice at a decent price, decide that it is sacrificial and drive it in the winter instead of your regular nice cars. It would suck to have a nice car get trashed by the salt, but it would be the plan from the beginning. And all cars start out nice and driven in the winter. They are cars, after all.

 

I always put my classic cars away for the winter . I would never drive them in this salty slop here in upstate ny . I actually wait for several spring rains to wash all the stuff off the roads before I take them out . I have considered buying a sacrificial olds 4 door for a winter car and see how long it would last . As far as my wife’s daily driver we just trade it in every five years or so . We have a 2010 super duty f250 at work we use around the property it is absolutely rotted to the core the bed is literally falling off it , hard to believe it’s only 13 years old .

 

I always store the Collector Cars by mid November. We have monthly wash plans for our dailies. Wash, undercarriage flush and liquid polish. I also wax each vehicle every 30 days from March to December. I will wax into the low 30's temp wise. My 2017 Silverado is in pristine condition. I also undercoat in the fall.

 

It is probably second nature to you guys but it is just so foreign to me. My daily is a 06 civic coupe (I haven’t washed it in maybe two years) I put 60 miles a day on it. My “upgrade” I think will be a 2010-14 accord. My online searches mostly bring up cars down south In That age group

One thing that we have been seeing is some of the really crappy car lots….. “It’s all good auto ” is one of them,have been buying rusted
out junk from up north and selling it down here.

My buddy runs a courier service and probably puts 80k a year on his cars and he has bought a few because they’re so cheap. but the normal Memphian would never look under a car for rust when they buy it. They just think they’re getting a deal. For his courier service it doesn’t matter it’ll be dead in year from a wreck or just mileage

 

I don't think there is any kind of rust protection that could protect a vehicle from the amount of salt and brine that Ontario lays on the roads. I have a used van as a daily driver. Luckily, I found a super low mileage 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan a couple of years ago. Honestly it only looks about 2 years old but if you look underneath you would think its been sitting in salt water for years. It has. My 442 stays clean and warm all winter.

 

Here in central Indiana, if you own a classic car, you also own a disposable winter beater.

I haven’t put my car away yet, it’s been 70* degrees and sunny. I try and enjoy it as long as possible before it goes into “dry dock”.

 

I would never take out my old vehicles in winter at all, as said the salt stays on the roads as a white dust even if nice warm weather it would go up as dust into the nooks and crannys of your collector car. I have always had old beaters and usually what kills them is rust- drivetrain still good. Now I have a 06 F250 for my beater. It was owned from new by a small town used as a plowtruck and salt spreader so it's really bad. I actually changed the bed to a less rusty one off a fire dept's brush fire truck. It only has 65 000 miles runs great.

How's that for Rusty?

 

 

It’s getting more fuel efficient as time goes on

 

When I lived in CT My old cars would be put in from the first snowfall until the rains wash the salt & sand away in the spring. That was usually a good 5 months I didn't drive them. My wife's 2012 Caliber and my 2014 Ford F-150 took the brunt of the winters, but with working from home due to COVID during the winters of 2020-2021 and 2022-2022 I think really saved the 2 winter drivers from alot of damage from the salt, etc.

Now that I'm located in central/west South Carolina, I drive 'em 12 months a year. ANd the Caliber & F-150 can have the winters off.

 

Do any of the under coating systems really work?
there is fluid film seems a to have a good following. Then there’s some almost asphalt looking stuff I have seen as well


Matt- we’re going to get up through Indiana for the first time next summer for our road trip.

Memphis -Louisville - south bend (studebaker museum) - greenfield village- Ann Arbor - undetermined Michigan places- badger ferry to Wisconsin then Milwaukee. Door county -spring green wi- and back to Memphis

 

The cutlass stays in the garage after the roads are salted, but will be driven AFTER a heavy rain washes it away, usually once a month or so. Original owner must never have taken it out, bottom is clean.
Drivers get rinsed after every snowstorm, and the underside is sprayed with fluid film every time I change oil, it stops rust, has made a hige difference.


Northeast cars can go 54 years and be clean.

 

Driving my 88 and squarebody sometimes in winter if roads are dry from snow and salt. But have been thinking
to have an early 70 ties car for winter driving. Better safety belts and discbrakes. Real studded tires.

If you give the car a good rustprotection and wash it maybe , I,m not getting any younger , why don´t have fun when
you can. If the car got some rust when i,m dead , not my worries but i have had a good time when i lived

 

I’ve lived in Wisconsin since ‘78, I just have a modern car for everything and the Cutlass comes out on nice days. Never in the salt or brine which is worse. The daily usually lasts about 12-15 years before it is falling apart and gets traded. Have never done anything extra to de-salt in the winter. Roads here in Jan/Feb are white as a ghost with clouds of salt dust like sand in the Middle East!! Not all cars just disappear in this area, my 70 S is a southeastern WI car since new!

 

FluidFilm is great stuff but will eventually wash off, thus you have to continually respray. My first 30 some years were spent mostly in Cleveland, Ohio where road salt is cheap; there are salt mines under Lake Erie. Dad believed in the Ziebart process which when applied to a new vehicle would help a lot and had some kind of guarantee. Just coating the undercarriage is not enough as the salted crap gets everywhere on and in your vehicle. Ziebart and possibly others use specialized equipment to spray inside body panels as well as the undercarriage. We also used to wash our daily driver vehicle with a warm water and kerosene solution in the winter months to help protect the outer skin.

 

The roads are still coated with salt even when it's nice in the winter. My 442 or 87 Mustang don't come out until after the last snow and the first few heavy rains have cleaned the roads.
I have a company truck that I can use for personal use. I get a new one every three years. We usually buy a one year old car for my wife. I usually try to find something that's spent it's short life south of Philadelphia. I don't keep our personal cars more than 5 years. We currently have a 2023 Acura and we won't keep that more than 5 years. My wife does have a frequent wash card at the local car wash

I bought a 2004 Honda Accord for my 16 year old daughter in Wilmington, Delaware 4 years ago. It's the cleanest 2004 Honda Accord in Upstate NY.

My uncle still sprays used motor oil inside the panels of his Ford Ranger. It works great

 

You know what else? In the summer they spray the dirt roads with liquid chloride mixture!! (to reduce dust) That's not good either.

 

There is literally no difference between road salt and brine. Brine is used in conjunction with road salt, and really is only an activator for the dry salt.

Some states/municipalities may use a different liquid deicer that could be magnesium chloride or some mix that is particularly nasty, but that is usually only used in very cold climates where salt is not effective.

 

Here in Minnesota with all the salt they use I've been using amsoil rust barrier and washing my winter vehicles every other day or so. If I posted my winter beater here I'd get roasted on this forum.

 

I think the south main guy mentions that—so basically salt year round up there

We go years without snow and then we will get it a few years in a row

I nearly died during Covid from stump appendicitis and when I drove home from the hospital there was a foot of snow on the ground. Talk about bad luck.

The difference between a Memphis winter and the rest of the state is pretty dramatic. Especially anything up on the Cumberland plateau so Nashville Knoxville and JC get snow while we don’t usually it seems.
The state is getting better about giving the used plows to us down here.

Mostly we have the add on plow front and a salt sprayer or brine sprayer that all fits on a standard dump truck and in the bed.

Theres a big navy base here and last time we went through a few years back the snow was bright yellow and smelled like pickles

I assume they got a deal on pickle brine

 

If you pass thru Kokomo, let me know!! Gotta see the Elwood Haynes Mueseum (inventor of stainless steel, the first commercial successful automobile, and dozens of other inventions.

The Auburn/Cord/Deusenburg museum is worth the trip I hear.

Better plan on at least a full day to see the Henry Ford/Greenfield exhibits. First time we went it didn’t take us long to realize we didn’t budget nearly enough time.

 

Basically, anything worth a **** that you want to keep you don't drive in the salt unless you lease and trade every 3 years.. 99% of people don't care or realize all you have to do is Krown, LPS2 or Corrosion Free treat a new vehicle and it will go 15+ years without rust issues. Do nothing and you get 5-7 years before rot starts eating it away.
Some people drive sacrificial "winter beaters"

I do the Krown. I have a daily 2015 Heep (jeep) that gets sauced annually. Its still rot-free. I have a 2011 F250 that gets the sauce too. Both are 99% rust-free,
The ~2011 F250s I see around town are ready for the scrap yard. Below is what mine looks like after a fresh saucing. Ya its slimy to work on but it's not a rotted crusty POS. It was a $55K truck new. 12 years later it still has significant value. It's still a 25K used truck all day. If I did nothing it would be a 7-9K beater truck at best

 

Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Chevrolet!

 

Would be nice to se a pic of your winter beater

 

MY 1988 Tornado FE3. 130k miles

 

Driving Oldsmobile both summer and winter
must be awesome .

 

You are 100% correct there, GCH, I live to drive 'em every day.

 

That video is so funny, thanks for sharing. It reminds me how diversified our country is. I watched a video of a guy from Louisiana just yesterday netting shrimp in a drainage gutter and contrasted him and his lifestyle against the folks in that video. Two different worls for sure!

 

That video was done by "Da Yoopers"
Do you know what a "Yooper" is?
It's a person from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

 

For years they used sand instead of salt here in southern Virginia, then about 30 years ago they started using brine. We're lucky enough it's only a couple times a year.

Used to always wonder why people from rust belt states would come down here and buy up cars we had written off as unrestorable or not cost effective to restore. Then I went to Lansing for the Centennial and saw cars 3 to 5 years old with fenders flapping in the wind, they were rusted so bad. And I understood.

 

We get a little here in Evansville. Toyota recalled the frame on my truck if rusted. Mine was not, dealership said it was; I guess they wanted the warranty work, so I got a new frame 8 years in. Truck is holding together, no rust issues, 17 years in for the rest of it.

 

If the road is not wet I'm going for that Sunday Mornin ride

 

Better get it done, looks like snow is predicted there at the end of next week.

While I moved from northern CT, I still keep tabs on how the weather there is going, and the long term forecast is not looking too good..........

 

Yes I do, I spent four years recruiting for the Navy in Wausau Wisconsin. Went up to Iron Mountain for a weekend once, what a beautiful place. The copper mines up there must be something, I bought a piece of raw ore from a souvinir shop up there which was really pretty.

 

There's a lot of "ghost towns" up there where little has changed since the late '40's.
When the iron mines ran dry.

 

a friend of mine is from the Detroit metro area and thinking about retiring back to Michigan in the next few years... anyhow he tells me about growing up there in the 60s and 70s. he jokes that the Yoopers call everyone in the rest of Michigan Trolls... you know....because they live under the bridge....

makes me laugh every time I think about it

 

Say ya to da U..P...eh!