[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by MuseChaser

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.

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