Driving on dry roads in winter

I told myself I would not drive my car in the winter once the snow and salt arrived, but since the roads were dry, I could not resist the temptation and drove my 360 spider from just outside of Boston down to Foxwoods and back last night - probably about 200 miles. How important is it now to be concerned with getting any road dust and/or salt off the car?

The roads were dry (i.e. there is no noticeable salt spray on the body panels) and the car is still really clean (I put it "away" a week ago after detailing it), but I could not resist taking it out for the trip on such a nice night (I won $500 too so it was was a good trip). This morning I noticed a dusty film down low on the car on the rocker panels were my legs brushed when getting in and out of the car. I feel like I have broken the seal and can just drive it now whenever so long as the roads are dry. I'm just wondering if it needs to be washed every time I take it out for a spin like this on dry but salted roads (where no rain has washed the salt away yet). I guess I'm not the only one driving this time of year since there was another one down there in valet parking as well, and in the sightings thread I see someone is driving a 430 around today on the northshore. Any thoughts on how often it should be cleaned or if its bad to let it sit for weeks with the salt dust on the car?

 

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

 

I'd love to take my 360 on a frozen lake just so long as the ice were thick enough If there are lakes in NH or MA that allow cars on the ice and the thickness had been tested with other vehicles such as 4x4 trucks, etc., I'd love to know about them and when and where there are ice driving activities. The problem might be the angle of approach between the land and ice to avoid front spoiler damage (boat ramp might solve this?). I imagine insurance would be void driving on a lake as well. For life insurance and sanity could put the top down, pack a life jacket and ice pick (in the event of a break through).

Where I grew up near Rochester NY (in a suburb town named Webster) there is is a bay named Irondequiot Bay, just off Lake Ontario, that freezes very thick every year and any given weekend in January, February and into March there are often many cars, trucks, ATVs, etc. driving all over the ice. They plow a few oval race tracks and cycles and dune buggies with studed tires have races. Its becomes a community thing with night parties, bon fires on the ice, etc. Each year someone pushes the season a bit late and a car or two ends up going through the ice. As a teanager I can recall being in my brothers Jeep on a warmer winter day when he took the top off and we went down to the bay and had tons of fun - you could hear subtle cracking in the ice however and its made me a bit uneasy but we had no issues. I imagine giong out there with a 360 spider would get ridiculous attention as there are not too many Ferraris in Upstate NY.

 

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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