Winter Salt: To wash or not to wash?

[Vaszya]

What are your thoughts on washing our cars in winter? I always have been against winter washing but currently reconsidering due to the sheer amount of salt on my car this year...

Thoughts?

[Plutus]

Im always washing in winter once a week. Its actually more important to wash the car in winter due to salt. Just find a carwash with underspray and never go to softcloth or whatever they call it for contactless ones. And in warm days lubricate door rubbers with silicone spray for them not to stick.

[MrMicra2015]

i heard the carwash recycles the water so you have salt, plus a high pressure salt wash in every crevice ....is that true? can they filter the salt out or is all the water new.

PS ive never been through a carwash in my life and recently given up driving in winter most of the time!

[Plutus]

Partially true they are using recycled water except at final rinse cycle.
Salt dilutabity in water is about 35% at 25 degrees. At lower temperatures it decreases so i would think in winter taking into account that they are not heating water it should be around at 7 degrees C at that temperature final solution will be around 25%. Add to that that they are using water softeners not to damage their nozzles and whole system you will get even less concentrated saltwater solution.

Now when you drive in salty road and salt gets build up on the car you can clearly see white thick stains all around the car paint and even more salt that u can easily see is underneath the car but when you are out of carwash with recycled salty water u cant see any stains when it dries up even on windows. So thats clear indication that carwash in winter on salty roads is much better than nothing. Dont forget that i am going to carwash mostly for rinsing and underspray ( first stage that hits pressurized water to the bottom).

[javensbukan]

I'm also team "wash your car in the winter", usually when I notice it getting particularly salty and crusty.

If it's especially bad I'll do the manual wash with a pressure washer, but for the purposes of salt removal, the automated contactless ones usually are just fine.

I usually wait until spring to do a hand wash & wax to get all the grime off from the winter, so my car actually looks actually white again, because the contactless washes do *nothing* for that.