Winter Cleaning Dilemma

S

SuperBuick

Member
Well...its been a bad bad winter so far.



Every time we get a dry spell, its freezing cold, and every time we get any "warmth" (i.e. above freezing) it is followed by or accompanied by precipitation, and every time we get precipitation, it is followed by frigidity (-25 wind chill here today, followed by a foot of snow tomorrow). So you see the viscious cycle. This, coupled with Massachusetts' seemingly endless love affair with rock salt, has made an extremely, extremely nasty mess of cars.



My 2004 Mustang, protected with a few coats of collinite 476, is getting to the salt-caked point that I am getting a little nervous about it, the only problem is, what to do?



I'd love to use the power spray off at the local DIY bays, but its so cold that they are either turned off, or the doors on your car freeze shut before you even have a chance to get back into it. This, coupled with the fact that the filth is so bad that I doubt the power spray off would even begin to make a dent at it, makes it seem hopeless.



Here's the key question: Should I leave it alone until I can properly wash it/spray it off, or should I take it to a "touch" carwash, and pray that the collinite is still doing the trick under all that filth. I'm particularly concerned about the unprotected areas, as there has really been a TON of salt put down this year, and the 245/17 tires on the mustang love to throw the salt up and around the wheel wells.



What's the best approach to take in a wintery hell-hole like this?



-T
 
Heh heh, the *best* approach is to run snowtires instead of the 245's ;) Sorry, couldn't resist :o



I think I'd leave it alone and wash it at the DIY/touchless when you get a warm snap. Even if it gets cold again quick or rains/snows, it would be better than nothing. Once you get the worst of it off it'll take a while to build up again.



Or, much as you might hate the idea, pay a (good) pro to do it. Or see if you can borrow some garage time from a friend with some kind of heater in his garage.
 
It really sucks this year doesn't it!!! More snow this weekend...I'm not sure what to do either. The QEW is used quite a bit by several folks around Autopia, but I don't know if it is used under conditions such as these in New England. The salt and sand is unbelievable. Hope someone out there can help!!!
 
Accumulator - 4 wheels and snows showed up at my door today ;-) Those will be going on tonight.



QEW is good stuff, but for the paint. It doesn't help with the undercarriage or the wheel wells or all the other areas I'm worried about :( Not to mention, I think it would freeze within 10 minutes of me even getting started.



I have access to a heated garage on a very limited basis, so I can QEW if need be, but its really not the paint I'm worried about....



-T
 
Winter Cleaning Dilemma



I hear that it is -15 wind chill, and we could get hit with 12" + of snow on Saturday, get the skis ready!
 
I'm in the same situation here in Toronto. It's horrible here too. Tomorrow, we're going to get a dumping of 10-15cm. Car wash or car bay? Or ride it out?



this thread needs a good bump!
 
I'm getting physically sick looking at my cars after three weeks of no cleaning. The amount of sand and salt that is on and in the car is enough to make you want to throw the car out and start over.



God, I'll never complain about pollen on the car again, I promise!
 
SuperBuick said:
Accumulator - 4 wheels and snows showed up at my door today ;-) Those will be going on tonight.
Click to expand...



That's the way to do it :xyxthumbs



As long as it stays nice and cold the corrosive stuff won't do anything much to the undercarriage. Next year, spray it down with some AMSOIL or something similar before the snow flies.



Oh, put something like KSG on the winter wheels so crap doesn't stick to them.
 
As I ran out of KSG, I'd been using the collinite, which works remarkably well. Thanks for the advice re: the salt/undercarriage. I just finished putting the snow wheel package on now, it looks UGLY (in a cool kind of way - I went with cop car steelies) Now I don't have to worry about impending death every time I turn, brake, or accelerate :)



As I had the wheels off and was looking about under the chassis, there are literally MOUNDS of salt built up on all the little shelves/areas where sand and such has a horizontal place to rest. Its sickening both in the sense that the car is brand new (bought it in october), and that its so cold, any attempt I make to even rinse it will likely do more harm than good.



He who came up with the phrase "when hell freezes over" was terribly mistaken, hell IS frozen over!!



Cheers.



-T
 
I did the unthinkable tonight....I took mine to the "100% brushless" car wash.



Here was my situ...we are expecting a major blizzard, and unfortunately it snowed two days ago. Thus I already had residual road salt on the body that needed to come off. Ordinarily I would've washed it myself (yes I've washed the car at 10 pm at night, so sunlight wasn't an issue). The issue was that it is currently 15 degrees outside. The temp. will not improve much tomorrow, and then the blizzard will start.



I could've taken the car to the hand wash place near my job, but that costs 15 bucks (without tips), and since it will drop about a foot of snow in less than a day, then the custom (and expensive) hand wash would've been a waste of time and money.



So I took the plunge and ran it through the ringer tonight. They actually did a decent job (as car washes go), with very minimal swirling (100% brushless doesn't exist unless it is a true hand wash). The aim for me was to get the salt off before the blizzard, and not to accumulate too much salt over a few days.



So automated car washes do have their place in this society.......



And just think, poor car #1 is slaving away in her garage, missing out on all of the weather's fun and misery, while brave car #2 is taking up the slack and enduring the punishment (as usual):rolleyes: :nixweiss :xyxthumbs
 
Have fun with the blizzard guys, its here today. its bout 10 now, and since midnight we've gotten 6-8 inches, and its not supposed to stop until about midnight tonight. So, figure it should hit the east coast sometime tomorrow morning... Have fun with that.



I know the feeling of the car wash, its been so cold here I dont think my car has truely been washed since like early November. I;ve just been leaving it, hoping we'll get a day in the 40;s where i can safely wash it without freezing the locks and doors shut.
 
When I lived in Pittsburgh I would take my car to a touchless car wash that had an undercarriage blast. I would get massive amounts of salt and much off of my undercarriage. I would wait untill it warms up to really get it clean. Good luck with the snow and salt.
 
SuperBuick said:
I just finished putting the snow wheel package on now, it looks UGLY (in a cool kind of way - I went with cop car steelies)..
Click to expand...



Heh heh, though I'll admit that I'm just a sucker for copcars, I really *like* the way black steelies look. The TireRack guy asked if I wanted hubcaps for the winter steelies on the minivan and I told him "no way!" :D



The Mustang probably looks like one of the highway patrol pursuit ones with those on it.



What did you do for center caps? If you have exposed stuff (the minivan has exposed hub retaining hardware and also exposed threads on the end of the lug bolts) you should probably put something on them to keep them corrosion-free. I use a very thick grease and just clean it off with solvent come springtime.



Collinite is pretty impressive for a "wax", huh?
 
accumulator - as of now, they're simply exposed, but thats a really good point as to covering them up. What I'd really like is some of those small little "hubcaps" that the cop cars use, the ones that essentially are the diameter of the bolt pattern, but I don't think I'll be able to get a set of those by tomorrow's snow.



With regards to a thick grease, how thick would you reccomend - the last thing I'd want is for the grease to sling off and get all over the car, but rusty threads are equally as bad. If you get this in a reasonable time let me know, as I'll head over to home depot to pick some up.



The car, being oxford white, combined with the steelies and "chunky" dunlops (Graspic DS-2), definetely looks like a highway patrol unit :)





And yes, I LOVE collinite.



-T
 
The little "dog dish" hubcaps *would* look cool :xyxthumbs



The grease I use came from Griot's so I dunno just what to recommend to you that you can use *right now*. This stuff sticks like glue, it never slings at all.



As a last-ditch solution, you could probably use some clear silicon sealant if you cleaned things off first. Or even rubber cement (the stuff you used in gradeschool art classes). Even if it didn't last too long it would be better than nothing. But some really thick grease should work without slinging if you put it on sparingly. You only need enough to form a barrier between the metal and the elements.
 
Thanks accumulator - I'll take a look at griots, find out a little about the product, and then try to find something comparable over at Home Depot...thanks again.



*looking for the dog dish hubcaps on ebay as we speak :D*



-T
 
DSCN2753.jpg


Salt Cake anyone?



DSCN2748.jpg


The Ugly Duckling
 
I QEW'ed last night in my unheated garage, but was above freezing. For the last 'wash' step, I used my regular undercarriage brush, dipped it into the QEW bucket, and got a bunch of sand/salt/grit/?? off.



One of the best purchases I made last year was a low psi pressure washer. Once it's warm enough to do a regular cleaning, I use it to get the cars back in shape.



I did take mine to the lazer wash before though, just to get a majority of the stuff off, including the undercarriage. Yesterday would have been too cold to take it there, for me anyway (it was 2F in the afternoon).
 
SuperBuick- Yeah, that's some salt buildup all right. Oh, looks like you have the crimp-on wheel weights. I read the TireRack the riot-act for using those (instead of adhesive weights mounted on the back)- just because they're my winter wheels that doesn't mean I wanted it done half-@$$ed :mad: My previous salesman there would *never* have sent me wheels with those on them. The mounting tabs on mine rusted pretty badly even though I had SG on them :( and when I pull them off if/when I need new snows there's gonna be a mark in the black paint :( :(
 
I guess the tire rack figures that since "nobody cares" how the steel wheels look, that they can just put on the lousy kind. Personally, I'm so glad to have gotten the snows that I pretty much chalked that up to just something that had to be accepted :(



Now if these were summer wheels tires....



Since the car is white, its harder to notice the salt buildup, thats why I took that close-up. I think I'm gonna run it through the laserwash today before the snow, so that when I'm cleaning snow off the car it will be less risk of scratching it.



-T
 
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