Jersey Guy Automotive OLD

What You Need To Know About Road Salt

Icy roads are treacherous roads, which is why one of the first things road authorities do when the forecast calls for winter precipitation is to send out the salt trucks.

The goal of this procedure-the point of road salt-is to increase the salinity of the moisture that covers the roadway. The higher the salt content of the surface water, the colder the temperature required for it to freeze. Water that has 20 percent salt content will remain liquid down to about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Natural salt is only effective if temperatures are above 15 degrees Fahrenheit when the salt makes contact with the ice. Any colder than that, and road crews have to switch to other, more potent ice-melting chemicals, such as magnesium chloride.

If you have to drive on icy roads, road salt is your friend. The problem is that ice isn't the only thing road salt erodes. Left unattended, road salt can have detrimental effects on your vehicle. A coating of salt on your vehicle's paint will eventually rob it of the properties that protect the underlying steel. Salt can greatly accelerate the process of oxidation-what we call rust, once it gets bad enough that we can see it without a microscope.

Keep your car as clean as possible during the winter, particularly after you've been driving on wet and salty roads. If your local car wash has an undercarriage wash, shell out the extra dollar or two for that service.

[Photo credit: Kate Ter Haar via Flickr, used under CC-BY-2.0 license]