BELMONT, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — All that salt and calcium mixture that’s used to pretreat the roads ahead of the winter storm can cause problems for your car if you don’t take care of it soon.
Scott Bobo is a Southerner who can handle the snow, even wearing shorts.
“I’m not cold at all especially standing in the sun, it’s actually kind of warm,” said Bobo, who lives in Belmont.
Bobo knows his car isn’t made for what’s on the roads, the salt and calcium mix that crews put down before and during snow and ice storms.
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“You have a lot of issues with your vehicle and you have to start replacing things if you start getting rust under there,” said Bobo.
He learned the hard way back in the day.
“I had an ‘85 Nissan truck and it was raised up, jacked up and it got salt and stuff under there and I never took care of it, it started rusting the little quarter panel piece,” said Bobo.
Since then, he goes to the car wash as soon as it opens after an ice and snowstorm.
“Pretty much after we get snow or they lay salt down, we’re rocking and rolling here, we’ve definitely seen a big spike in our numbers,” said Zach Bond, manager at Aqua Wave Carwash in Belmont. “It definitely makes the car look bad (with calcium chloride), you never want to go anywhere with a dirty car, so you gotta get it washed.”
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But that’s not the only reason you should wash your car to get all that salt off.
Mechanics say you don’t have to worry much about the calcium chloride doing a number on your paint job or the outside of your car but it’s the inside and the undercarriage that it can wreak havoc on.
“It can eat away, especially fuel lines which a lot of them are made out of aluminum, and aluminum can deteriorate very fast because of the salt,” said Thomas Kazanji, an estimator at McClure Collision Shop in South Charlotte. “That salt will stay on there and it clings on and it starts deteriorating a car after quite a few years.”
Whether you do it yourself or go through the car wash, it should pay off.
“It wasn’t a very expensive repair but it can keep rusting up if you don’t get it out of there,” said Bobo.
Take care of it now, and you won’t have the hassle Bobo did later.
