Winterizing

I’ve lived in Idaho for a few years now, but this is my first winter here with an older car that I am worried about rust on. Before I had a really dependable, low mile ‘02 LeSabre. Anyways, what are yall out there in northern climates who have to daily your wagons doing to winterize: 1: make sure they start, 2: They are warm inside, and 3: combat rust formation? Car is a SC car and only has some surface rust underneath. Do yall use an oil or something to coat the underside?

https://www.fluid-film.com/

This works well. You do not want hard coatings that can crack free of the metal and water gets underneath and never dries out.

You have a good rust free underbody, so its worth preserving then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H86EBhO6oyc&feature=emb_logo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbXBax-Kh9E

I would do an oil based spray like the fluid film or NH Oil or the like....

https://nhoilundercoating.com/

At one point I wanted to coat the underside, but got the same advice you just gave. Unless I am doing a body off restoration, hard to be certain there is no contaminants or moisture on there still. Sealing it with paint or a hard ending product just seals the water and salts in!
I’ll check those products out. Thanks guys.

I just give up driving mine for 12 weeks, and don't worry about the salt. Once it's gone, the wagon comes back. For that brief period, I have a 2008 Volvo V70 to drive.

dmg4 wrote:

I just give up driving mine for 12 weeks, and don't worry about the salt.  Once it's gone, the wagon comes back.  For that brief period, I have a 2008 Volvo V70 to drive.

Me too, you can slow down the salt damage, but never keep it from happening, especially if you are in an area of high traffic on a freeway, where the spray goes everywhere. Kind of a corrosive fogger. I guess that is why they test corrosion resistance with a "salt spray test).

I had to do some freeway driving in my LeSabre during heavy snowfall. It was painful to change lanes in the slosh and power wash the underside of your car with dirty salt snow mix...
Thanks to Covid I don’t do that much commuting now and try not to drive in crappy weather. Im not in a position where I can have an extra car though so I have to take my wife’s van.