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Tips To Help You Shield Your Car From Road Salt

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Since salt usually lowers the freezing point of water, it can cause ice to melt even when the environmental temperatures are below the freezing point. This makes salt ideal for use in clearing up sheets of ice from roads.

However, the use of road salt as an ice-clearing agent usually exposes vehicles to corrosion. It not only increases the rate at which the vehicle's metallic parts wear out, but also creates ugly marks that can ruin the vehicle's aesthetic appeal. The following are tips that will come in handy in helping you to shield your car from the devastating effects of salt.

Cleaning your vehicle

When cleaning your car, it is advisable to use a high-pressure garden hose. This is important as the use a generous amount of water usually helps to not only dilute, but also wash away traces of road salt. There is also the fact that using a high-pressure source of water increases the effectiveness of the wash-down since the high-pressure jet can actively dislodge any particles of dried salt from your car.

When washing your car, always use a sponge or a wash mitt. This is important mainly because they are not only effective at getting rid of salt-soaked dirt, but they are also soft enough not to scratch away the corrosion-proof layer of your car. Keeping away from using dish soap is also advisable since regular dish soap can strip away the layer of wax that usually protects the car's metallic parts from the devastating effects of road salt.

Applying wax

Exposed metallic surfaces are usually the most vulnerable to road salt attacks. Lining them with a protective layer of wax usually shields them from road salt and thus prevents damage.

Unfortunately, this wax surface usually gets chipped off or erodes with time. This makes regular waxing a must. When doing so, the first thing that you should keep in mind is that better wax-metal bonds usually form when the wax is applied on a dry surface. This makes letting your car dry before waxing a must. The second thing that you should keep in mind is that the protective wax doesn't usually bond well with cold metal surfaces. This makes warming the metal surface with a hand-held hair dryer a must. This is important as heating up the surface usually increases the bonding between the wax and the metallic surface. As a result, it makes it harder for the wax to fall off, ensuring that your car enjoys total protection from salt corrosion.


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