I know many of us daily drive our cars and are focred to drive under these extreme winter conditions we've been experiencing. Though, I make an effort to drive at a bare minimum to avoid sliding and damaging my car, and to avoid accidents and injurys.

Having driven through all the sleet/salt, ect, and watching the snow accumulate on my car in the parking lot at work, I feel the need to wash my car everyday at the carwash to avoid rust and any other build-up that can occur from driving through all this snow, ice, sleet and salt.

Reason for this thread is to post what you do to take care of your car durring the winter when your forced to drive in these conditions. Basically, what do you do to avoid rust and keeping your car clean throughout? Whenever I'm not driving my car, it's in the garage, which makes me feel a little bit better, but I still feel like I'm damaging the car slowly by not having a daily driver available this year.

Your thoughts:

-Edit: Also include your thoughts on the black rubber stripping on the wheel-wells.

 

i have a gsr and i bought it with no rust. i was going to take it to the one body shop by me and have them undercoat it. i didnt have the money so i sprayed some from the store in the wheel wells and gas tank just till next fall. i dont see anything forming so im sure its working. plus once its 40* or more i take it thru the car wash and let it dry in the sun.

 

Buy one from that was originally in CT and already has some underbody rust. Then you just don't care. Working for me so far.

 

I heard something that the ITR came stock in 2000-2001 with some type of protection on the wheel-wells to protect and prevent against rust. Anyone have anything further on this? Or is it a crock of ****?

 

IDK About the wheel well protection, But what I did when I had my R was go to the car wash about once a week and just got the under body sprayed, Got into the wheel well and it worked. Next winter I put it on the lift and got some rubberized under coating and covered the bottom of the car in the main rust area and the whole wheel well.

Then after winter just to be safe I always lube the suspension w/ a silicon spray bushing and bolts so nothing sleazes together.

 

taken from http://www.itrsport.com/technical.html

 

Hence why I don't see many ITR's with wheel-well rust, or any at all.

 

Very interesting. If only more Hondas had this

 

i havent washed my car in a month. rain is the only element keeping my car somewhat clean. no signs of rust on my 97, but my car has been garage kept since i've had it. i think the two previous owners garage kept it too.

the only prob i had were my wheel bearing. couldnt get the axles out of the hub, so everything was replaced due to it being welded together.

 

garaged for winter > *
But undercoat sounds like the best solution and tearing off those stupid black rubber things

 

I still have those stupid black rubber things! For some reason I'm afraid to peal them off!

Why are they so bad to leave on? Why would Acura put them on their if they would hurt the car?

 

They trap **** in them. My perlude rusted out under both of them. They're nothing just go yank them off. They pull off easy.

 

lol I have a 01 with some rustor on it. It wasn't really taken care of by the previous owners and winter drove in Wisconsin.

 

This is just a SMALL sample of what WILL happen to ANY Honda Product, regularly subjected to the extremely harsh winter elements associated with a locale that Truly knows a thing or two about "Winter" elements, Canada. ALL of our winters are harsh, not just this winter of 2009/2010. The only guys spared for the most part are the lower South West area of Vancouver/British Columbia, but here's some advice from a Honda aficionado, who knows about rust in Canada.

I'm the last person to suggest under what elements an R should be driven, as has been said here MANY times since I've been here, "It's NO Enzo!" But if one MUST drive a Honda in the harsh winter environments, then my personal opinion is to Protect, and diligently care for the car during this exposure with EVery available means, and if you guys down in the United States of America have rust protection products I WOULD suggest availing yourself of them. We have two Very well/strongly recommended products up here, Rust Check and Krown rust protection. I think the following image speaks for itself, adn this IS a car that HAS the Zinc Oxide under paint protection mentioned here: http://www.itrsport.com/technical.html#anti
Proof is in the following picture, In My Humble Opinion I THINK it serves BUTT KISS and is Truly meaningless, especially when faced with constantly ranging temperatures, humidity, and road Salt and sand!

This car has seen EVERY winter since 2000. It IS FULL of rust, IMHO, if your caR means anything to you, I Strongly recommend Both Constant flushing/cleaning of the underside, AND a Proven form of rust protection/inhibitor! IMO.



It should be noted that the wheel well's, rear 1/4, fender lips, were perforated with rust as well.

 

How do I avoid rust? I garage it for the winter and have a car that's used to winter after winter of salt. I want this Honda to last for many years.
I never heard of the ITR getting better corrosion protection than other Hondas...but I wouldn't bank on it even if it's true. I've been seeing more and more ITRs showing the famous Honda rear wheel-well rusting. It's also a PITA working on cars with corroded suspension nutz and boltz.

Yes, get rid of those rubber cancer strips. They hold dirt against the sheet metal which holds moisture.

 

yeah that would help out not to rust and power wash spray the rear wheels to get dirt off.

 

Lol Joe, cancer strips. Yea i got rid of my "cancer strips" years ago and i recommend this as well.

 

cant really tell specifically why but itseems that the north american winter conditions react far more abrasively and cause rust far more extensively then Europe,

I studied and lived in Toronto but am from Germany where I very often see cars from various other cold countries like Holland(Netherlands),Austria,Sweden,Denmark etc and not a single one of those countries have the slightest issue with rust.

perhaps the issue is not due to temp or condensation but rather salt is the fully responsible factor since all these countries have one thing in common that differs from North America and that is the fact that they dont use Salt or Sand but rather some greenish blue chemical?

one thing I would do is get a winter beater and simply not drive all winter long,I mean its an itr and deserves to be babied IMO.

wide tires are worse for wet and winter conditions aswell as stiff suspension and your definatly not going to drive like you do in summer when you have full traction so why not just jump into something reasonably cheap,reliable,good on gas and smooth like an fully stock eg si?

 

Because a nice fully stock EG Si is worth a lot of money in North America. That's because most of them have been riced and/or rusted out already.

For winter driving nothing beats an older CRV. I've seen examples pushing 200K miles that are still cranking along nicely.

 

accord wagon DD in the house

 

I want a newer SUV such as an Explorer/Expedition or something of that nature. I figure if I'm going to have an ITR and another car I might as well have something completly opposite of the R. Something 4X4 is nice in the snow and for carrying things.

 

Especially with the winters you see up in Buffalo!

 

If as in opposite you mean poor gas mileage, spotty reliability, bad resale, etc...Then yes, an Exploder/Expedition is the opposite of an ITR.

I'd look at a used Ridgeline or used Tacoma/4Runner if I were you and skip the Ford SUV's.

 

True. Personally I'd go for an older CRV. If you can find a 5spd for sale....it'll be a ton of fun too.

 

I wonder why I couldnt think of that and I could not have agreed more to what Todd00 said,a CRV would be the best vehicle period for the trouble you face.

easily found with most in decent condition,great mpg,reliability,resale is more or less %100 there and hey its a honda!

I worked a year for Direct Energy in Canada whom had a fleet of ford vehicles and were in the process of switching over to GMC, and in the end I drove both brands in similiar conditions and have to say there both are garbage!

not saying the CRV is any better since it too is a poor vehicle for off road but why pay twice the amount for the vehicle,gas,repairs for such performance? I drove a Lada Niva
(Please view on google) and that peice of **** drove 10x better then our customer who had a explorer going up a mountain to his quarry/work.

if you want a true true 4x4 and want it haul,have good traction and perform good on offroad you want a discovery,landcruiser,tundra or at the very least a pathfinder.

we went to dubai once as our Volvo(construction) sales team and one of the guys who came from Texas asked the driver how come they have nice *** daily drivers like camry's,lincolns,maximas all from north america but not a single north american 4x4 and the driver says we did but most are stuck and hidden under the desert where they failed in there first 100km's of operation,keep in mind we were in a discovery that had 200k driving in that very same desert as he said this