Does anyone take the 86 off the road during Winter?
 

Roads in upstate NY get copious amounts of salt in the Winter. I have always had a beater for the Winter, like my 01 Odyssey with 185k miles. I like to have at least one car that is "clean" to work on.

At least I have something to look forward to in the Spring.

I'm from Brighton area of Rochester, NY.

Lived there twice...guess I had to relearn.

Note where I live now...

Fuck that salt !

Owning a vehicle used away from salt, that vehicle can be used for one's entire lifetime.

My opinion is that in the 21st century it's totally insane to be continuing to use salt on roads.

What's this "winter" you speak of?

:slap:


humfrz

I do, but only because I only drive to/from races, and road trip. I drive sometimes on Thanksgiving, but it's not worth the work (brake swap, etc.) for the amount of driving I just won't do. Also, save a ton on insurance that way.

I always have winter tires on the car in case of an emergency. Except this winter, when I had no car, then the replacement came with fancy brakes that my winter wheels didn't clear. Oops. :)

Everything I've read/heard says it's quite a nice drive if you've got the right tires and such. Lots of 'em get run ice racing.

Yep, I put the BRZ away every year. Somewhere around November up through March depending on weather.

A real Winter. The kind that makes a few attempts to kill you.

When I was a kid people learned to drive in snow. We used to grab onto bumpers and hitch a ride. Nowadays people want to get to work without having to slow down. The towns buy mountains of salt and spread it around generously.

It’s not just the cars that get ruined. The roads and bridges take a big hit.

So I have a winter beater for when I know there's going to be salt/etc on the roads. But, I still drive my FRS every week or two in the winter between storms. Granted, I get less snow than NY, and PA doesn't really treat the roads unless absolutely necessary. And even then, not all the time.

I got the underpanels to mitigate rust risk. The front of the car is relatively well protected, and the factory undercoating is pretty tough but I feel the underpanels add another layer of protection for most of the car. Exhaust is going to rust no matter what, and maybe the driveshaft etc. That leaves the rear subframe. I've had a Subaru subframe literally fall apart under me. It gave me plenty of warning, I was just dumb and it was my beater at the time. Just some inspection, paint repair where necessary, and replace parts BEFORE they fail. Whole subframe can be replaced btw.

Yup, put it on a battery tender, fill tires to 45 & top up gas tank, no gas additive, Nov 30th to April 1st.

No.

This is my only car and thus my DD. Therefore I don't need to look forward to driving it, its a all year round thing.

Its even an easy car to drive in winter. If anything the communicative chassis and steering is more relevant in these conditions than in good conditions.

No. I bought the car to drive it. I figure it will last longer than me, so, I'm not saving it for any reason.


humfrz

Just swapped the blizzaks last Friday :-)

Any car that is driven in salt and I work on (my Ody, wife's Prius and son's Xb) get sprayed with fluid film NAS every year. I does get a little messy but it really does have a big effect on corrosion. I buy the 5 gallons from Kellsport (via Amazon) and use the Pro undercoat gun with compressor. The "C" channels get a tube stuck in them with the stuff coming out radially.

https://www.amazon.com/Fluid-Underco...fluid+film+nas

I used to use LPS3 but this stuff is better. It really wicks in and stays "wetted".

Ziebart is crap. Like flushing $ down the toilet.

I plan to drive mine through the next winter.

A good rust coating goes a long way, I've been doing some research to find somebody around town who will take the time and apply it correctly. I just want to find a place that will ensure they silicone and properly protect the rubber under the car prior to the coating.

Crown has a good reputation, at least select locations around town.

I'm a fellow snowball competitor from Syracuse area, and my FR-S is my daily driver so it sees snow, salt, and LOTS of both every winter. Salt isn't used for traction improvement; when I lived farther north in colder climates but with less total snow amounts, they only used sand occasionally. That, coupled with colder weather and hardpack, made for surprisingly good road conditions throughout most of the winter. Salt is used in our areas because we get so much snow that there's really no place to put it; without melting the snow, the banks would get so high they'd dangerously encroach upon visibility and road width. I wish they didn't have to use it, not only because it's terrible for cars (and bridges and other steel structures), but because it makes driving conditions WORSE. I'd way rather drive on snow than on snow melted into slushy ice.. especially after it re-freezes into a sheet of ice with more slushy lubricant on top of it.

As far as protecting my car from the salt.. well... I'm much happier just not worrying about it. Having run the gamut of conscientiously washing some of my cars throughout my life every week throughout the winter, waxing it, spraying the bottom, etc., to doing absolutely nothing until spring, I've found that there's almost no difference. When you wash your car, you're just driving some of that salt farther and farther into crevices you can't reach.

So far, the FR-S has stayed in EXCELLENT condition through the Syracuse winters and saltfests... not a speck of rust visible on the body anywhere, and the undercarriage including exhaust is holding it's own very nicely. Factory rust-proofing has come a long way, and dealer-applied coatings are a waste of money in my experience. After-market coatings usually just seal in rust that's already started so you can't see it until it's REALLY bad. I know.. my opinion. Lots disagree. That's cool.

It's a car. It's a fun car. It drives well in winter. It's cheap. Don't worry, be happy.

Yes ever since I switched to a BBK - no dust boots so I stay away from salt. Also my winter tire setup doesn't fit over the brakes anyway. It sucks since I enjoyed driving the FR-S in snow and ripping donuts in empty parking lots.

My other car in the snow is boring. Understeer everywhere. I recently drove my FR-S again and it just brings a smile to my face.

When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s to now, the amount of salt applied to roads is incredibly high. I can't remember exactly, but I think newspaper articles have reported at least 4x historical amounts. It is ridiculous. Cars are safer now than they have ever been with anti-lock brakes and traction control, all wheel drive, etc, but people seem to freak out about snow entirely out of proportion to how dangerous it is. If a road isn't clear in a few hours with plow trucks and salt, people think its the end of the world. And municipalities and land owners are terrified of being sued, so they slather the salt on, the more the better. I remember sledding down streets and driving on hard packed snow all the time as a kid. Never happens now. Come on people, snow is fun!

Roads, cars, bridges, all that is affected like you said, but people forget about the impacts on the water. It all washes into the local streams. I work in the environmental field and can tell you firsthand that chloride and conductivity levels after snow melts in urban areas can peak to near seawater levels. It is wreaking havoc on the aquatic life. Drinking water aquifers have seen steady rising salinity levels since the 80s, directly attributed to the higher salt application rates. Soon it will be an expense to desalinize public drinking water supplies. We've been working to demonstrate the impact, but it mostly falls on deaf ears. I've seen areas in Nova Scotia that ban the use of salt to protect the National Park wetlands, so I wonder if they will ever enact restrictions here in the US. Something needs to be done because its out of control now. I surmise some sort of recommendation based on lbs per road miles per storm should be in order. My 2 cents.

Myriad

Nope, I throw on snow tires and drive. It's my daily. I've got an unlimited wash pass so it gets washed at least once a week in the winter in an attempt to keep some of the salt off.

https://i.imgur.com/pfCiQ2g.jpg

at first i tried to store it for the winter then one day I had to take it out for an emergency since it was my only car available to me then i realized how much fun these are in the snow, so no i do not store it lol

This ^^^^^. Nothing else is reality! These are not the 80s where cars rotted away in 3 to 5 years.

Yup, I top it up with gas, check the tire pressures and keep it hooked to a smart charger for 6 months. I drive my Lexus IS250 AWD in the snow and rotate that between the BRZ 6 months at a time.

Tcoat 's snowmobile ..........:D


humfrz

I do agree that today's cars (from the factory) do hold up better in salt than say 20 years ago. Dealer applied is crap. I still think Fluid film is great stuff, but I realize a lot folks do not want to get the car up on jack stands once a year for a spray.

As brands go, VW/Audi/Porsche bodies with their extensive use of galvanized steel and very nice paint are way ahead of Subaru, Toyota and Honda. Unfortunately, they don't have that Japanese reliability.

In the end, it's just a car. You can't take it to the grave.

Lol at anyone who stores their car in the winter.

What are you saving it for?

Why?

For the next 20 years or so.

Mostly, I just don't want to work on shit that's rusted all to f***

How many times have you been underneath your car? And for what purpose?

None yet. I do have a few items here to install though. I'd much prefer to keep it salt free and that's what I'm going to do. :)

I would love to, but then that means you've got an extra car in the driveway taking up space and making things generally a pain in the ass.


That's exactly why I want to keep it off the road. Every car I've ever owned has fallen apart from rust, rather than dying a more 'natural' death due to mechanical wear. If you get 10 years out of a car up here, you're doing well. I have 14 year on our Jeep and it's on the verge of a terminal cancer diagnosis. Mechanically it's been great, aside from corrosion becoming a bigger and bigger issue whilst performing normal maintenance.

Newer cars fair better, if manufacturers use more zinc between panels it certainly helps. I am thinking long term beyond 7 years as that is when corrosion will start to catch up to unprotected cars in the winter.

My family 98 civic had nearly 300k and was almost 15 years old when it was written off and it didn't have any of the typical Honda rust. It was rust proofed from new.

Given the lack of ground clearance, I have better luck taking my FR-S off-road when the ground has no snow, is solid, and relatively flat. Even small boulders give it trouble, and deep mud is a non-starter although the after-market snorkel I added does help.

My FR-S is my only car. I drive all year in upstate NY. Get it washed as much as I can during winter. I don't even have snow tires and it was totally fine, snow, ice, and all that, with AS tires.

For sure they do but undercarriages are still a problem. They generally end up looking like this. Body panels seem to last forever now.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...Rf7lZkpdwxvQV6

I hear you. My 96 Integra GSR was scraped due to rust on the undercarriage.
It got bad enough that it punched a hole in the floor under one of the brackets that held up the driver's seat.

I used and I'm not joking a 2x4 piece of wood to hold up the seat at the end of that cars life the final couple of months I held onto it.

You got rid of it just because it needed a new floorboard ......??


humfrz

It was one of many reasons. It was my first car, and I was a broke kid unable to keep up with it.

The fuel lines were shot, rust had spread to the rear quarters and behind/under the door. The last straw for me was the heating system started malfunctioning.


https://i.imgur.com/jcdPM5W.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Ur6Vomp.jpg

I was jest ah messen wich ya.

Back in the day, when a "floor board" gave out, we would just saw up some rough cut oak boards and make a new one....... ;)


humfrz

He said "floor" board not buckboard.


https://images.fineartamerica.com/im...ill-cannon.jpg

Depends on what you define as a problem. Sure that rust would make some nuts harder to remove but that would be the worst of it's impact. The rest of the rust in that picture could be removed with a wire brush and painted over. It is purely cosmetic unless you wait 70 or 80 years for those parts to rust through.

Problem probably isn't the right word, more like a pain in the arse.