What's worse? Winter grime or chemicals from car wash?

**AWD*V70XC** · 02-01-2005, 01:58 PM

The most important thing I will do when I get my next XC70 is to wash the wheels/rims every week, I can't afford for them to get pitted by that dam brake dust like it has done to the present rims.

I also think the winter road salt is worse than any chemical in the car wash, I can't see them using expensive chemicals to clean a car, surely it is just a proper washing action that gets most of the dirt of anyway

**littlewaywelt** · 02-01-2005, 02:18 PM

Originally Posted by skibo

Can we really be so cavalier about rust? Have cars gotten that good lately?

- My father's 73 Impala was full of holes at 6 years.

- My 94 Honda got its first holes in 8 years - only 2 years improvement in 20 years of automotive evolution.

If I extrapolate out from these 2 data points, it says my '04 is due to rust-through in 9 years. But then, that's probably acceptable to anyone but a miser like me

Actually I'm only reguring what I heard on CarTalk a few weeks ago when the subject of rustproofing came up. They both chatted about how much more effort is put into the galvenizing process now, number of parts, increase of plastic, better paint, etc. My Jeeps which arguably have very poor paint quality all went about ten years before any rust showed up. Same deal with my Saab.

**gibbons** · 02-01-2005, 05:31 PM

All of the exterior panels on the XC are galvanized except for the aluminum hood, composite tailgate, and mild steel roof sheet. I got a little scratch to the metal in an unnoticeable area on a galvanized panel, and have procrastinated getting some touch up paint. After a couple of months of salty weather, it still just looks like bare metal, no rust. No, my car isn't ruined, the scratch is a hairline about .5cm long.

**Raynald** · 02-01-2005, 06:08 PM

Originally Posted by gibbons

.. No, my car isn't ruined, the scratch is a hairline about .5cm long.

A scratch??

Gee, what ashame...

Joke aside, mine has also some little bare metal scratches here and there and no visible rust whatsoever. Contrary to gibbons, the reason I still have then is not because of lack of time, but mostly lack of skill. Like I've said in another post, my touch-up work would probably look worse than the scratch itself.

Give me a big surface to paint, and it will (hopefully

) look like a mirror!

But tiny scratches...