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.