SALT ON WOUND  OF  PERSONAL TRANSPORT:
BETWEEN JANUARY & MARCH IN BALTIMORE,
VEHICLES  WON’T STAY CLEAN  FROM SALT

Is it car preventative maintenance or therapy for drivers?
 
By David Maril
 
Even weeks before making the switch to Daylight Savings Time, the car wash lines start forming early in the morning when we have a few dry, warmish days.

Every time the temperature climbs into the upper 40s in January, February or March a procession of cars, SUVs and pickup trucks can be seen idling on the side of roads and highways, waiting to proceed into a car wash. It’s as if they are positioning to participate in a Fourth of July parade.

One clear, 35-degree morning last week, in between snowstorms and bouts with sleet, I saw a guy on a side street in Northwest Baltimore off Greenspring Ave. wiping down his windshield and side windows with Windex.

“Why are you doing that?” asked his young, around 10-years-old daughter.

“I want to get all this salt and junk off and I know the car wash places will be too crowded,” he answered.

The higher the deposits of salt grow on roads, waiting to help create potholes before seeping into the ground and polluting our water supplies, the more motorists become obsessed with having their vehicles blasted by soap and water.

No matter how high the heating bills rise this cold winter, car washes remain with many as a necessity rather than a luxury. No matter how tight the budget, a surprising number of people still find ways to afford having their vehicles scrubbed and buffed.

“I’ve got to get that salt off the car — it will destroy the paint,” many will explain while waiting for up to half an hour in line to pay anywhere from $10 to $50.

Prices often depend on the coupons and discounts they’ve brought and whether they want the undercarriage treated. All types of soft wax, hard wax and spray wax are available.

Some car washes are proud of the fact that the entire process is mechanized, while others promote the fact their service is more customized, with cars toweled off by attendants.

For those environmentalists who grow despondent over water being wasted, many car washes have signs proclaiming they use their own well-water.

Few car wash patrons worry about the risk of subjecting their vehicle to the hurricane-force winds that are part of the drying process. Apparently it’s worth the gamble of losing a strip of molding or having a side mirror bent when the car is dragged through the pressurized spray tunnel.

You also have to wonder if it’s good for a car to have pressurized water sprayed into the frame and joints hours before the temperatures plunge back down below freezing at night.

Still, there’s nothing that can deter some people from being able to put a sparkling, shiny and clean car on the road in the middle of winter.

“Nothing kills a car like salt,” many drivers have been known to declare.

It makes you wonder if salt distributors have a deal going with car washes to spread fear our cars and trucks are in danger of turning into rust buckets overnight, before the loans are even paid off, if we don’t take aggressive action.

As a person refusing to yield to the temptation of winter car washes, who has a vehicle driven over 360,000 miles, I reject this theory.

Even if the threats of rust are true, there’s one major flaw in this winter practice of car washing: Nine times out of 10, another snowstorm will be on the horizon within days, and tons of salt will again be blanketing the roads and highways.

Will it really make a difference if your vehicle draws a temporary reprieve, say for a few days, from a salt coating?

And in most cases, you end up driving through saltwater puddles moments after leaving the car wash anyway.

One of my cousins has a new, silver Ford Fusion hybrid and was happy he’d been able to get into a car wash on one of the days a week ago when temperatures reached 50 degrees. When I commented that snow was predicted a few days later, he answered it was OK, the car needed a cleaning.

My strategy that week was different.

I figured my car would get a good natural washing free of charge by sitting in the driveway during the snowstorm, which was forecast to be followed by heavy rain. Sure enough, the day after the rain stopped, my car was clean and shiny and I didn’t have to pay any scrubbing fees or waxing charges.

The reality is that keeping saltwater off the undercarriage in winter is as futile an effort as preventing summer bugs from smashing into your windshield when driving on the New Jersey Turnpike. Usually with the type of winter we are having in Baltimore this year, a day after getting washed your car will again look as if it spent the month of February in Maine.

The trick — and car wash owners don’t want to hear this — is to wait until the threat of snow has severely diminished and salt on roads and parking lots has disappeared. Then, and only then, is it practical to pay for a deluxe car wash. Usually the middle of March is a safe time.

Most devoted car wash patrons, however, won’t accept this reasoning.

“I like the look and feel of a clean car,” you’ll often hear.

Which cuts to the truth: Car washing is really about what makes the driver feel good and has very little to do with what benefits the car.

But you know that’s not such a terrible thing if all it takes to wash away the winter doldrums is to have a clean car for a few days.
 
davidmaril@hermanmaril.com

 

Actress Joy Harmon, an eye-candy protégé of Groucho Marx, stirred up a chain gang by washing her car in full view of the male prisoners in the highly acclaimed 1967 allegorical prison drama ‘Cool Hand Luke,’ which starred Paul Newman, Strother Martin, George Kennedy, Harry Dean Stanton and Dennis Hopper.  The controversial scene caused quite a stir among U.S. moviegoers.
(Click on any of the five photos to see larger images.)
 
“Inside Pitch” is a weekly opinion column written for Voice of Baltimore by David Maril.

CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S “INSIDE PITCH” COLUMN:  click here
…and read previous Dave Maril columns  by clicking here.