Miata Mailing List: December 1997, Message #234
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From: 	"Bill Bowser" <webowser@fuse.net>

Subject: Re: Auto-wash and the Frozen North

Date: 	Tue, 2 Dec 1997 21:15:50 +0000



Since you have brought up one of my pet peeves, I thought I woud add my two

cents worth.



Stepping up onto nearby soapbox -



It has long been my contention that when the average motorist starts to

realize the actual cost of putting salt on roads to melt ice and snow the

practice will soon end.  Just a couple of weeks ago I heard a report on the

radio from the Ohio Department of Transportation in which they proudly

proclaimed that they had something like 375,000 tons of salt ready to

spread on Ohio's state highways (and wreck your cars.)  The amount of

damage done each year to all the cars throughout the parts of the world

where road salt is used must be enormous.



In 1982 I bought a new Toyota pickup truck which I kept for 14 years.  When

I sold it for $100 in 1996, it had holes through the body, holes in the

floorboard through which water splashed when it rained, the driver's side

seat be lt anchorage in the floor had disintegrated, but the deisel engine

and other running gear was still in god shape.  I had paid something like

$6,100 tor the truck when new and if it had been rust free it probably

would have been worth $3,000 to $4,000.  For the sake of this discussion,

let's say $2,900.  That means that the use of road salt resulted in a loss

of $2,800, or $200 per year.  If you multiply $200 times the number of cars

similarly exposed to road salt you begin to realize  what an incredibly

expensive way to deal ice and snow this is.



Stepping down from soapbox now,



Bill Bowser & Drifter

Black & Red '93 LE, who has never been exposed to road salt & is currently

hibernating in

Cincinnati, Ohio