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Well, that's an impressive washing regime, Drew! I can see why your car doesn't rust. I, also, live in MA ...there is no way I'm gonna wash the undercarriage weekly it's too cold! I would end up with a massive ice sheet on the poorly drained driveway. We don't drive much by miles, but it's still multiple times a day (elementary school, etc)
But, this is a good reminder to wash under my Subaru now it's spring. I found a easy trick: set up a fan sprinkler on the ground, put the car over it, pull the sprinkler slowly out the other side.
My Fit was more or less the main car for 12 years, 65k miles. Is it rusty underneath? Yes, stones chip off paint slowly and salt corrodes it. Unsafe? No, it should be able to go another 60k miles without too much trouble, though I'm not sure about 12 years. About to trade it in, a good service life for about, I would say, $2000 depreciation and $<500 maintenance/ repair a year. Hard to beat except in a Toyota.
You can keep a car almost rust free for 20 years in the rust belt just with rustproofing and washing/waxing the car at least three times a year (spring, summer, fall).
You can keep a car almost rust free for 20 years in the rust belt just with rustproofing and washing/waxing the car at least three times a year (spring, summer, fall).
Apparently the owners of this particular car didn't do that...
I retired my Cobalt due to rust issues..... The rocker panels were so far gone it was as if the floor pan was no longer connected to the car body. And I washed it all the time in the winter. I do also suspect the high-pressure wash tends to push the salt farther and farther into every nook and cranny of the car body and it stays there forever.
They absolutely do use salt in Chicago, or at least they do here in DuPage County. The most common snowfall was about two inches so they'd put six inches of salt on the roads.
I had this car for 280K miles and sixteen years. Still ran like a Swiss watch.
I retired my Cobalt due to rust issues..... The rocker panels were so far gone it was as if the floor pan was no longer connected to the car body. And I washed it all the time in the winter. I do also suspect the high-pressure wash tends to push the salt farther and farther into every nook and cranny of the car body and it stays there forever.
I had this car for 280K miles and sixteen years. Still ran like a Swiss watch.
Thanks for the tip about the high-pressure wash! Glad to hear your car ran so well for so long. Yay!
Yes, as soon as I saw those pictures of the rust, I immediately canceled all plans to go see the car. Unfortunately, I've never been in a position to afford a new car. I bought my previous car with a little over 100,000 miles on it, and it lasted 11 years.
It was running beautifully, until it got t-boned in a freak accident, while it was parked in front of my house. A guy who had just been released from a heroin treatment facility stole a car, and hit three cars before mine. He swung around to the opposite side of the road then gunned right into my parked car. Would you believe the address he had listed on his license was the parking lot for a public school...? Life in the big city. ;-)
BTW, Chicago isn't in the snow belt (we're west of the Great Lakes, which dumps a lot more snow on the east coast than we ever see). We get sub-zero temps, but very little snow. I've never once seen salt used on the roads here.
Before this car arrived at a Chicago used car lot, it was mostly driven in Pennsylvania. I just heard that they use LOTS of salt on the roads there. Another good thing to take a look at, in the CarFax report ;-)
Yep, there's all different flavors of pressure washer and I should have been more specific in my description.
My dad has a gas-powered washer that would probably strip paint. Mine is an electric SunJoe model with high and low settings. The high setting is maybe half as strong as my dad's gas-powered washer. The low setting is maybe 50% more pressure than a normal spray nozzle attached to my garden hose.
I also have a number of different tips -- 0 degrees, 15 degrees, 25 degrees, and 45 degrees -- that allow further adjustment. So, my low pressure washer setting with the 45 degree tip is just a bit stronger than my garden hose, but because of the angled extension wands i have I can easily access the undercarriage of the car for a thorough rinsing.
My low pressure washer setting with the 45 degree tip is just a bit stronger than my garden hose, but because of the angled extension wands i have I can easily access the undercarriage of the car for a thorough rinsing.
So are you saying you can do this while the car is on the ground?
Yes, if you have the right extensions you can get underneath with the car on the ground, but you will spend time on your knees so it's not the most comfortable. More commonly I run one end of the car up on Rhino ramps (and then switch to the other end) to provide just a bit more access. It sort of depends on how much time I have (or how cold I am).
There are also products like this:
Alternatively, someone above mentioned using a sprinkler. That will work too. If you're really devious, you tie a rope to the sprinkler so that you can move it back and forth under your car by either pulling on the hose or the rope which you have laid out the other side.
04-28-2024, 12:25 PM
I would end up with a massive ice sheet on the poorly drained driveway. We don't drive much by miles, but it's still multiple times a day (elementary school, etc)
