road salt just once?

[Leonard1818]

Hi everyone!



Quick question. I took my vehicle out of the garage about a week ago. Last night there was a dusting of snow and they decided to pour road salt on the bridge by where I work. I'm not sure if it was on the highway but it was dry anyway.



Part of the reason I put my car away for the winter is to avoid corrosive salt. How bad is it that I had to drive through about 100ft of road salt (damp) at a slow speed? I'm going to a coin-op when I get home and I'm going to give the underside and wheel wells a good wash.



Is it prolonged exposure that causes rusting or can seeing salt one time be just as bad?



Thanks!

 

[kkreit01]

Your car will survive it (before you will). You already have the right plan -- just run it through a touchless underbelly wash when the snow/salt is gone, or has dried.

 

[Accumulator]

Yeah, now that it's happened just try to clean things off.



With the exception of the RX-7, every one of my vehicles has been driven through awfully salty winter conditions. Yeah, even the Jag. It's pretty rare for limited salt exposure to cause serious issues as long as you thoroughly clean things off. The worst I can think of is some flash-rusting on bare metal and some light clouding of uncoated aluminum. But you *CAN* get those issues after even very limited exposure. Clean things off and see what did/didn't happen.