I opened my hood this morning to refill my washer fluid reservoir and found a freaking horror show! Why is the weather-strip on the leading edge of the hood so weak? It looks like the salt spray and road schmutz basically came right through the hood gap and covered everything under the hood I'm gonna have to kill myself this spring to get her "show ready" again God I hate winter.
Now up-dated with technicolor pics!!

 

Mine too, it got blasted like a blizzard in there! White salt dust/grime covered everything. I think it's because my seal doesn't really work anymore...I hit a bump one day and now my front bumper sags about 1/2"-3/4" so naturally it doesn't press up against the hood/weather strip anymore.

The part that pisses me off is that I can't figure out what part of the bumper is damaged that makes it sag, I've taken it off and back on and replaced clips...maybe i warped it or something. It sounds terrible but you can't notice it unless you crouch down in front of the car and see that the gap around the headlights bottom (Edit: and the hood/bumper gap) is much bigger than usual.

 

pics for clicks! These pics don't really do justice to the awfulness but its too damned cold to be taking better photos in the daylight outside. On second thought, yes they do look pretty damn bad when you click the linky to see the full size image! 56K take a power nap See my avatar for how it looks when not "winterized"

 

Is your hood/bumper gap big like mine? There is no way my engine would have gotten as dirty as yours if I didn't have such a big gap in between, maybe you do too, do you have a frontal pic with it closed?

 

what if you replaced the front weather strip under the hood with a heavier duty garage door weather seal?

 

as you can see folks, this is what a non-experienced newb would say
from a non-snow belt state... jk tofuman.

no, a larger weather seal will not do much. you just need to clean it
in the spring or not drive the car at all in the winter.

 

Thanks for posting up this problem. Repin you! I have not looked that over since we have been hit by several days of snow and salt ladden roads. I normally pop the hood and clean up the engin bay with each washing but I haven't done it the last few washings because it has been so cold here. It is going to be in the 50's on Sunday so I will get it washed, detailed and pop the hood for a clean up. Then Monday we are in for "substantial" snow fall which means more salt! Gosh I hate winter!

Cat :x

 

I use this crc stuff when I ship machinery overseas.

So this year I sprayed in on some of the unpainted parts under the hood
It'll come off pretty easy with mineral spirits come spring

 

i cant bare to c wat under my hood looks like, i dont think i have cleaned under there since the summer, not gd...

 

i only open my hood to change the oil

 

^^ I was hoping to get through the winter without having to change my oil, but no such luck! The orange wrench of death icon has appeared on my IP. Its supposed to hit high 40s here this weekend also Cat so I'll be changing the oil in two cars tomorrow morning. Its hard to see in the pics I took but it actually appears as if much of the crud is coming from underneath the car. I'm not in any hurry to add a full belly pan to the Fit to keep the engine clean either. My Jetta had a full pan and it was a huge pain in the ass to change the oil, took over an hour, versus the Fit which I can do in about fifteen minutes. I'm going to put some wax on the manifold runners, CAI, and engine cover and see if that does any good.

 

i changed my oil outside in the rain. worst. idea. ever.

 

umm stuff comes up from underneath the car too, you know

 

I'm sure you know all about road salt from all that they use there in Hawaii eh bra? JFWY Yeah i know it comes from underneath as well, but I really don't care what the bottom of the engine looks like. I changed the oil and cleaned her all up this past Sunday, applied a liberal amount of Meguiars and its all good now....