Driving on dry roads in winter

Barry,

I drive mine also as long as the roads have not collected to much salt/sand. Not sure if it is a problem or not but much like you I can't resist the temptation. Typically I just keep it washed on a regular basis.

Tim

 

IMHO opinion"no harm,no foul"
A Ferrari perhaps as much as any car should be driven as much as you can.
Certainly "salt dust" is just that dust.
Get a leaf blower when you return and blow it off.I do that even in the best of summer days.
Just my 2 cents.

 

I have always driven my Ferrari's over the years when the road conditions allow. Best case scenario is after a cleansing rain washes the salt and sand. You will always find the car runs better in the spring at the start of the season!

 

Make sure when you wash the car to wash inside the wheel wells and under the car as best you can. Just keep it clean and you should not have any problems. And enjoy your drive.

 

Have a few coats of good wax on her. Drive her and have fun, rinse/clean afterwards and wipe dry. Some of the most fun i had, besides track, were snow and ice days. If you wanna really have big arse grin n' giggles fun, drive the car on a frozen lake

Also, frozen lake gave me more experience/insight concerning car control.

 

Barry: your aluminum-bodied 360 is fairly impervious to the corrosion of road salt. I'm no materials expert, but I posed similar questions when I moved up here in Road-Salt country to Dennis Liu, our local FCA Prez....he said so long as the car was galvanized (started with the 348/355, steel-cars only), you were fairly protected. I'd back that up with a thorough, occasional underbody wash if it were my car, but Aluminum cars like the 360/430 should be pretty safe.

Sand, however, is very abraisive. Steve is dead-on, wax the hell out of your car before 'sandblasting' it.

 

I can't imagine you wouldnt sleep better as I do with just a quick rinse (just water, nothing added)...

 

Mix road salt powder with water and you have salt water. Destructive to most metals. Even the USN had to give up millions of miles of salt water runways because, even with all of their resources they could not come up with a maintenance program to prevent corrosion on their aluminum seaplanes.

Scratch a paint bubble on a steel car and you uncover brown rust. Scratch a paint bubble on an aluminum car and you uncover white corrosion powder.

The aluminum cars also have many steel parts, so the salt is able to attack both metals effectively.

Driving on salt powdered roads at 80?, 90? mph will allow the powder to full penetrate every surface as well as every nook and cranny. What you can't wash off will just sit there until you drive the car 90 mph during a rainstorm, at which point the water will mix with the salt and penetrate further.

The sand and rocks finish off the attack by blasting through paint, primer. galvie(steel), or zinc oxide(aluminum).

Repeat the salt bath....you get the idea.

So, as long as you have an effective maintenance plan....not to worry

 

My opinion is that driving in those conditions a few times may add a tiny bit of corrosion (aluminum or glavanized steel) to the undercarriage, but that downside is overshadowed by the engine benefit from keeping her running. It's a win-win, you get to enjoy your Ferrari all year while keeping the engine healthier. And that is the heart of our cars

 

Ah, Webster. There are some nice driving roads up that way. I used to take my Triumph up there when I was living in Rochester, and eat at some really greasy fried food place. I think it was called Charlie's.

 

Galvanizing started with the Jan '84 308s.

Having grown up in Cleveland, I concur with this post. I drove a black VW GTI in the winter during college. The VW had light primer underneath the black paint. You could see pinprick corrosion spots after a few years where the paint had tiny chips along the door bottoms and rockers.

That said, I'd guess an occasional run in your 360 wouldn't do much damage. As posted when you mix salt dust with moisture -- voila, salt water. At a minimum I would get the underbody cleaned in the spring. I'm sure it does benefit the mechanicals to go for a good drive.

 

There is a ice racing league in New England.. but forget their name. ALMOST did it, but heard too much fender to fender bumping during races. As for lakes, oh, about a mile or two from my home there are three options. If this cold weather hold out then Late January for sure, some guys are already snowmobiling out there on them. The locals never minded seeing the 308 on the lake, but then again they knew it was me out there (i'm the 'crazy guy' with the sports car of this small 900 population town). So they knew it was just me.

IMPORTANT: Tires, i suggest Blizzak WS-50 as they are incredible for snow/ice.

 

Huh...learnt' sumptin' new every day....

 

Couldn't resist, went out collecting salt dust yesterday.
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