Skip to main content

A carwash can protect your car, truck or SUV’s finish from road salt in a McHenry winter

A dirty powder covers your car, truck or SUV graying whatever color is semi-hidden below. This is the bane of living in McHenry in the wintertime. It snows. Plows range from the Southern to Northern and Eastern to Western extremities of the city clearing snow off the pavement. Behind the cab where the driver sits, the truck bed is filled with road salt. A spreader at the back spins out the salt so that it covers the area where people drive.

As the salt melts the snow and ice on the road, it leaves a powder residue. Moisture on the road picks up the residue and, when vehicles drive by, they kick up the residue-filled moisture as a mist. Other cars, trucks and SUVs behind that vehicle drive through the vapor cloud and the moisture coats their cars.

As the moisture dries, it leaves behind a coating of road-salt powder dried to the vehicle’s finish. It’s a good idea to properly remove this powder before its continued presence on your car, truck or SUV damages the finish.

The problem is that the road salt is corrosive. Left on a vehicle’s finish, it will begin to eat its way through your car, truck or SUV’s finish. This won’t happen over night but, little by little, the road salt will win the battle with your vehicle’s paint and make its way down to the metal where rust will begin to form.

Underneath the car, the road salt has a field day with the chassis of your vehicle. This wasn’t so bad when vehicles were made on solid frames. The floorboards might rust out but the frames were made with thick-enough metal that it could take decades for the road salt to win that battle. Now, with unibody frames, the road salt doesn’t have to eat as much metal to win the fight.

The solution to protect the car, truck or SUV finish and undercarriage is to run the vehicle through a carwash regularly during the winter. Make sure you accept the option to clean the chassis. It’s also a good idea to have wax applied to the finish. This creates a protective barrier to hold the effects of the road salt at bay.

McHenry has several carwash options available. It’s a good idea to put them to use during the winter. You’ll go a long towards protecting your car, truck or SUV’s finish.


battery discount

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is your antifreeze safe from freezing this Richmond winter

You still have time to have it checked Well, there’s no denying it – winter tends to get chilly here in Richmond. We have to deal with snow and ice on the roads, scraping the same off our windows and windshield, and staying warm while we drive. Of course, you had your antifreeze checked before winter rolled into town. What?! You didn’t have your antifreeze checked before winter clamped down on Richmond? So, how’s your antifreeze doing?  If you haven’t had it checked, there’s really no way of knowing, is there? This car has overheated in the middle of a Richmond  winter. But, on the other end of the spectrum, the antifreeze can also freeze if it's not up to its job. Hopefully, you haven’t had a serious problem with your antifreeze already. If you did, you’d probably know. When antifreeze fails, it’s a potentially catastrophic condition for your vehicle’s engine. You could have hoses that have burst because of freezing antifreeze. Worse than that, your engine block may have crac...

Blocks of ice falling from cars in McHenry could cause accidents or damage

We’ve all seen those blocks of snow falling from behind the rear tires of a car when the snow rolls into McHenry . Fortunately, they’re just packed snow that will disintegrate under your vehicle’s tires as you simply drive right through them, right? Don’t count on it. Those blocks of snow are often packed so tight, condensed by the thaw-and-freeze cycle, that they’re anything but oversized snowballs . They’re often more like boulders.  Hit one of those blocks and the collision between the block and one of your tires could send you careening off the road or into oncoming traffic. In some cases, they’re so solid you could pound them with a sledgehammer with little effect. They truly can represent a serious road hazard. The problem is that it’s difficult to tell how solidly they’re packed when you see them on the road, left their unwittingly by another driver. Either way, your best bet is to try to avoid them. But you want to be careful dodging blocks of ice in the road, too. You need...

Timely maintenance is even more important with your Johnsburg Electric Vehicle

Even if you have an electric vehicle in your Johnsburg driveway, maintenance is still critical. You pull out of your Johnsburg driveway and you watch the gas stations go by as you smile from behind the wheel of your EV – Electric Vehicle. Of course, at some point, you will have to stop and charge the battery but you still take some comfort that you’re not standing next to your car as the fuel pumps into your tank. One of the true comforts you take with your EV is that the mechanics of your vehicle are simplified. You don’t have to worry about the engine breaking down anymore, and we all know how costly that can be. But there’s more to your EV vehicle than you may have considered when you first parked it in your Johnsburg driveway.  Many of the parts found on gasoline-driven vehicles are also present on your EV. These require the same maintenance as your gasoline-powered vehicle. For instance, you EV still has: Tires and Wheels Brakes Steering and Suspension Windshield Wipers and So...