Does a car rust quicker, garaged

Here in the western New York we use salt on are snow covered
roads.
True or False. Driving daily and garaging your car. Does a car
rust quicker if garaged with the salt slush and moisture on it
(dripping on the floor)? Or is it better to keep the car outside
the garage in the natural frozen winter elements?
Of course the driver does routine maintenance on the vehicle.
Maybe even a few commercial (undercarriage rinse) car washes
from time to time…

Has there been any studies done?
Will it matter if the garage floor is epoxy coated or natural
concrete?
Insulated and unheated garage and other combos...

TP

 

The only issue I can think of is that if the garage is heated and if
there is some humidity in the air, this will add to the rusting process
on the car. Other than that, I do not think there is any real
difference if its garaged or not.
I'm not sure what the floor of the garage has to do with it either.

 

The principal governing factor is that the chemical reaction occurs
more quickly at higher temperatures. That argues against garaging and
especially against heated garaging.

Other factors are second-order. If epoxying the floor allows you to
clear out the slush often, that's good; else the difference is
negligible during the winter. However, the salt absorbed into an
untreated cement floor will have a small effect when the car is garaged
wet in the summertime.

Some years ago I read that Rochester (western NY, for our distant
readers) uses 7% of all the road salt in the US. To me that's a
jaw-dropper. I wish I'd saved the newspaper article so I could
attribute it here.

Brent

 

In general chemical reactions occur more rapidly with higher
temperatures than they do at lower temps. So, if the garage keeps the
vehicle warmer then it would be if left outside then the answer is
probably yes.

John

 

I've never seen any authority on this, but I would agree with John,
that it would be worse in a heated garage. Not only do many chemical
reactions occur faster at higher temps, but when you melt the
ice/salt/slush, I would think it would give it more opportunity to get
into cracks, crevices, etc. If you kept it cold and frozen till it
could be washed off, I would think that would be better.

And the other question is, how much difference does it really make, as
compared to the other benefits of having the car garaged, ie
warmer/easier start so less wear on the engine, more comfy, no frozen
doors, windshield ice, etc.

 

I would think they're two issues as far as an unheated garage. First
humidity would be higher as vapor would not be chased off and outgas as
readily as in heat, result is comparitively higher humidity over a
longer period of time but at slightly cooler termperatures. Second
retention of water even if the floor is coated by definition is higher
as it is a "closed environment" My two cents.... Doc

 

Rust happens only above a certain temperature. Below that, it won't.

If you garage the car, the more likely it is that you'll hit that
temperature.

 

warm, salty, wet - bad combo for cars.

 

There is no one simple answer.

Below the freezing point no rusting will occur, so outside may well
reduce the rust. Driving a car into a garage means the warm car will warm
the garage and stay warm longer allowing more damage.

Outside being cold does not bother the car, but it can slow rust.

In real life there is not that much of a difference.

 

Reason for rusting includes humidity trapped in places where
rust then occurs. In he garage, those spaces would dry - rust
process halted. Even better is to rinse salt out of those
spaces with water - not the salt recycled water found in car
washed. What does a car wash do? Wash that salt into places
you don't want it. But more important is to get those 'deep
inside' places dry.

 

"Even better is to rinse salt out of those
spaces with water - not the salt recycled water found in car
washed. What does a car wash do? Wash that salt into places
you don't want it. "

Now this is an interesting point of discussion. I've wondered about
this. Does a decent car wash have anything in it's water recycling
system to remove salt from the water? Do they at least use clean water
for the rinse? If not, I wonder how high the salt concentration would
get and how long after the last application of road salt it would be
before the car wash had eliminated most of it from the water in use?

 

Its funny that no one here has really hit the nail on the head on this one
yet.

Increasing the number of freeze-thaw cycles over a car's life along with the
presence of moisture (and compounded by corrosion- inducing ions found in
road salt) will certainly accelerate the pace of rusting. The moisture
gets into seams and beneath undercoating and dirt and paint (even in
microscopic size locations) and then freezes (which expands, causing minute
but detrimental movements in the metal and paint bonding) and then thaws and
allows the moisture-salt solution into even more new new places to repeat
the process is what does the damage over time.

And by the way, a high pressure car wash in the winter will force that
corrosive solution deeper into the seams and nooks and crannies and can do
more harm than good. Worse yet, some car washes use water that has been
recycled several times and has a very concentrated salt solution from
everybody elses car before you use it - shooting this stuff all under your
car a few times every winter is really asking for it. Sounds funny, but if
you suspect recycled water after the carwash owner denies it, taste it for
saltiness (have a bottle of good water handy to rinse afterwards in any
case!)

 

I think that it would be a bit safer and easier to just use an ohm meter.
Recycled water with a high ion concentration should have considerably lower
resistance. It might also save you from consuming a mouthful of
hydrocarbons, antifreeze, and who knows what.

Eric

 

Most use clean water for everything.

 

"Most use clean water for everything. "

Is this true? I'm pretty sure the local one uses recycled water. And
unless water was free or really cheap, I would think most would recycle
at least the wash water?

 

I think the real "nail" here is how old of a car are we talking about? I
haven't seen rust on any car that was less than 10 years old for a long time.
Who actually worries about rust any more other than those that have "vintage"
vehicles?

Keeping cars looking newer longer these days is almost entirely a matter of
avoiding dings and dents and keeping the paint from fading/oxidizing. Rust is
simply not the issue any more. About the only time a newer car is going to rust
is after it has been damaged in a manner that exposes bare metal.

 

I've heard this before, but think it's over-rated. The water is
hitting flat pieces of sheetmetal and bouncing off. Some gets into
panel gaps. I don't see any real "forcing" of water into strange
places any different from where rain-water would drip. Plus, those
"hidden" places aren't what's going to rust first. What's going to
rust first are areas where the paint has been damaged by rocks and
sand.

 

I've seen some late 90s Chevy Cavaliers and Malibus with moderate rust
along the edges of the doors and trunk lid.

 

I work for an environmental company, and have done clean up at a few local
washes cleaning out the traps.

All fresh.

 

i agree, i've been there as well (in the south)

always been municipal water into a holding tank of some sort, that fed the
pumps, some times with water softners to help soap and wax treatments do
their jobs easier and of course prevent spotting etc.. the water drained to
sewer, all the crud stuck in the PIT, when the PIT was full the crud stayed
and the bays just flooded

definately would not want recylced water shooting on my car.