No. I don’t use the car wash. Just when I get oil changes. I also have a car wash in my basement in Toronto which I use once per moth. But I don’t care that much about my cars to wash them all the time.

 

LOL! Detailing the chassis and suspension and 303'ing the brake line is COMMON PRACTICE?!? Please, most people never even wash their cars.

I am EXTREMELY **** about my car, it gets dusted off and vacuumed every night, washed 1-2 times a week and even *I* dont do that. I understand you do and thats great, but "common practice" not even remotely close.

In fact, I would say far less than 1% of vehicle owners maintain their cars in this way.

 

it's a rare event when i wash the topside of my cars.

fixed that for you.

 

Haha, exactly!

You mean you dont take all the wheels off and scrub the underside? I bet you don't wax your hot water heater either. Its common practice!

 

This. I make sure to wash my car twice a year, whether it needs it or not.

 

I used to live in Calgary (actually used to work in the city's Roads department), and yes, they do tend to lay down quite a bit of snow and ice control material. It varies between different dilutions of calcium chloride, to different amounts of calcium chloride mixed in with crushed 1-6mm gravel (they call it "pickle").

The reason for the amount of salt is due to weather. Warm weather comes and goes so quickly that snow can melt and freeze over the course of a few hours, especially on bridges and overpasses. It's unfortunately a necessary evil, which makes it that much more important to rinse the salt off of the car (including the underbody) over the winter. If I still lived there, I'd be applying Fluid Film before every winter, just like you. The Camry looks great btw, and the condition it's in speaks for itself.

 

well then don't complain when your car(s) rust/corrode and items fail

 

I'm not trying to be rude, Jill, but bagwell has a point. It is imperative to keep the undercarriage of a vehicle as clean as possible in the winter..especially when it is regularly exposed to salt and/or abrasives. Some jurisdictions use non-corrosive (or lesser-corrosive) solutions on the roads, but they tend to cost a lot more than simple rock salt and are sometimes hard to get. Not every place can afford to use them, or justify that expense to often-finicky taxpayers.

 

Why can't the city use a less damaging mixture? Other cities do it. Also I think it's time we mandate winter tires instead of dumping massive amounts of salt on the roads, what makes it even worse is storm drains are not filtered the water gets dumped directly into the river. AND the salt destroys everything it touches there are sections of road where you can see the concrete curbs and barriers severely damaged the salt gets into cracks and eats away at the rebar.
I assume this is an enthusiast forum so a fair number of people here do more than drive their cars into the ground and never wash them. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

Feel better now? Nice remark. Anyways, the point of this thread was to share what happened, Not to complain of that is how it sounded.

 

Look at the responses lol

Even if everybody here did that, it still would not be anywhere near "common practice"

 

Which other cities? What do they use? What's their budget for SNIC like?

Calgary allocates a lot of money towards road maintenance and SNIC. I know that part of the reason they use calcium chloride is because they can buy it at a good price from a neighbouring province or state. Budget is a real concern if Council wants to keep the tax rate where it is, so even if a better chemical could be used, it would likely be more expensive due to up front cost and transport. If you're aware of a better solution, I'd suggest getting in touch with City Council.

Mandating winter tires is for a separate discussion, I personally don't agree with that.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest downloading the Calgary 311 app on your device. You can open service requests from the app to flag damage that should be fixed.

 

I don't know the budgets but using less salt is saving money. Winnipeg uses beet juice, supposedly Calgary does as well but I've never seen it maybe it's being tried on a small scale. Molasses is another solution that is effective.
How much is being spent to fix infrastructure due to salt damage? Never mind the environmental impact. And the cost to consumers is enormous having to fix rotted out and damaged parts.
Quebec has a mandatory winter tire law we should do the same.
There are enough construction starts as it is and not enough being finished, I'm not going to suggest even more lane and road interruptions.

 

One word.....money.

 

Less salt saves money, but also allows ice to form. Safety > money. Also, if I recall correctly, Calgary has tested beet juice and molasses, it doesn't work well enough in that climate. No idea on the cost.

Calgary has by-laws in place that prohibit washing your car with car wash soap/detergents because they drain into the catch basins. Calgary also has an excellent recycling program, and they also implemented a compost program. I think all of this offsets the environmental impact of the SNIC material draining into the catch basins. Not to mention the procedures in place for storing salt/pickle piles in structures and on sites that control and prevent those chemicals from draining into the main water system.

I don't care if Quebec mandates winter tires, I don't support it. I think that it's a band aid fix that forces people to spend a chunk of money on something they may not necessarily need. Plain and simple.

You complained about the road damage and the environmental impact. I provided an easy way to report the damage and voice your concern to an entity that can actually do something about it. If you want to bury your head in the sand and just keep complaining, that's your right, but if you want to contribute, the app is on the Play Store and the App Store. For the record, Calgary handles road maintenance and road work worlds better than Winnipeg does. Jobs are completed faster and the quality of work is much better. But maybe that's more of a reflection of Winnipeg's road maintenance.