Quote:
Originally Posted by ROFL it's Waffle
@ Tcoat does make a good point, several Canadian winters are a pretty good example of "it'll be fine in the snow," although I can't speak to rain/slush/snow changing... because road salt mixed with slush is where the problem lies. That said, the oldest cars out there are just 7 years old (well, 8 since people can order a 2013 MY and get them in mid-2012).
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Through most of automotive history cars were disposable. This was especialy true through the 80s and 90s where the majority of the econoboxes were designed to have a 3 to 5 year life and then be thrown away and replaced with a new one. They were not built to last in harsh climates as they were cheap enough to just scrap out when done. The late 90s and into the 2000s this mindset changed and as cars got more expensive people held onto them longer. The automakers are not stupid and they saw this trend so instead of just writing off the idea of a planned 5 to 10 year ownership they started working to actually prevent serious rust. Cars now just plain and simple do not rust out like they used to. They use rust resistant materials in those body panels subframe areas most susceptible to salt and moisture. Yes you will get surface rust on bolts and uncoated steel but that will not become a rust through "issue" for decades (if ever). Look around any parking lot and see how many 10 or more year old cars there are that are rust rusted through. Back in the 70s to 90s you would see many but now there will probably be none. Other than Mazdas! It took until 2008 for them to make a car that didn't rust out in under 5 years.
The other past issue for cars rotting out fast was the metal they used. From the early 50s right up to the 80s much of the recycled steel used in building cars came from the scrap of WW2 equipment (mostly ships). That equipment had been made in a hurry and much of the steel was sub par to start with. After it sat and oxidized for a few years it became even worse. Post WW2 all those thousands of ships, tanks, trucks, aircraft, etc became the raw materials for the huge boom in car manufacturing. All those nice oxides got mixed into the steel since the recycling process was not up to removing them all. This resulted in body panels, frames, parts, etc that were starting to rust the minute they rolled off the assembly line. This problem remained until all that material was finally used up and the refining processes improved in the late 80s.
Strangely enough though is the current destruction of the wrecks of the WW1 German fleet at Scapa Flow. Since the ships were built and sank before the nuclear era so their rusty old steel is now very valuable for sensitive instruments since any steel exposed to air since 1945 is now contaminated by radiation. The wrecks are being systematically destroyed and salvaged for that uncontaminated steel.