brine

Your car suffers from brine and salt during the winter

It’s important to properly maintain your car during the entire year, including winter. Visiting the car wash or throwing a bucket of soapy water over the car yourself is very necessary during this time of year. Especially because the roads are full of salt and the salt and brine residue can damage your car.

Do you regularly wash your car during winter?

Brine and salt residue

When your car’s varnish or some of the parts within the engine already have some damage done to them, the brine or salt that is left behind during the winter weather can worsen this damage. Clumps of snow or ice combined with brine can get stuck within the wheel arches or at the bottom of the car. The rust process can also be sped up by the combination of dirt, moisture and brine. In other words, there are more than enough reasons to properly maintain your car!

Tips

If you decide to visit the car wash, pick the program that includes cleaning the wheels and the bottom of the car. We’d also recommend getting an extra wax treatment to protect the varnish. Because of this extra layer of wax, road salt will attach to the varnish much less quickly. Whether you prefer the car wash or cleaning the car yourself, these tips will help you to properly maintain your car:

Use Vaseline or glycerin on all the rubber seals around your car, like the one around the lid of the trunk and the seals around the doors. This will prevent them from drying out during winter.
It’s a good idea to spray all of the locks with anti-freeze lock spray, so they won’t freeze closed.
You can buy special covers for your windscreen wipers that will prevent them from freezing stuck.
Are you washing your own car? Make sure you use lukewarm water instead of warm or hot water. If you use water that’s too warm, brine residue will get a chance to eat into the metal and that’s exactly the kind of thing you’re trying to prevent.
After washing the car, dab the rubber seals dry with a towel. Also dry the doors, hood and trunk lid.

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