How far does one have to park from the ocean to keep a car safe from salt water corrosion? Has anyone lived near salt water and seen corrosion from the water?

We live half a mile from a harbour, and get salt spray on our house windows when we get a storm. I havn't noticed corosion on my car because it is covered, and not outside in the weather.

Edited June 5, 201410 yr by olzed

Kansas

It kills our cars here. If you are in sight of the ocean on a windy day you can see the salt spray dry on your car.

The fog also is salty and bathes the car and every crevice with salt.

They also salt the roads here but the ocean moderates the temperature so that it is usually above freezing in the day and below freezing at night. This results in the ice melting in the day and the salt making a brine that makes cars white and crusted. It soaks in every crevice in the underside and rots wheel wells. At night it freezes and the water turns to black ice...fun and adventure.

Welcome to Nova Scotia! It makes one a better driver as well as identify which cars rust faster (WORST Mazda, Hyundai, Subaru, Nissan, Honda , Toyota BEST)

Cars are now made better at not-rusting. All cars used to have visible rust after 5 -6 years in the 90's, now they go 8-10 years. Seam sealing has helped a lot.

Nissan had problems with steel and aluminum subframes (electrolysis) . the funniest are steel and aluminum tire pressure sensors and caps that corrode... a tire valve cap causes a few hundred dollars to replace a pressure sensor.

Edited June 6, 201410 yr by Blue

Interesting answers. Kansas. Now that is good. I guess my Z is already at risk and I didn't even know it. I better start packing to move further inland. heh heh.

I didn't know fog could carry salt inland. I wonder what the film is that gets left on the windows. Just salt I guess.

Half a mile? Wow that is a longer distance for salt to carry than what I thought it could do. I remember being on vacation at the seashore and noticing an outside circuit breaker box showing signs of corrosion. It was about 400 yards from salt water.

Blue, I have wondered about cutting sheet metal out of JY newer cars to fix sheet metal on a Z due to better corrosion resistance.

Edited June 6, 201410 yr by Mikes Z car

It also makes a difference exactly where the car parked relative to buildings. A friend of mine has an apartment on the ocean front in Venice, and the difference in corrosion rate (on balcony railings) is incredible between the front and rear of the building. He ultimately scrapped out the iron and replaced with stainless.

How far does one have to park from the ocean to keep a car safe from salt water corrosion? Has anyone lived near salt water and seen corrosion from the water?

500 miles

You could take a freshly sand blasted datsun fender and put in the full sun in the Mohave desert in August, and it would be rusty in 72 hours....

If you want to get all scientific about it,

Air + the earth and its oceans => wind => clouds => humidity => rust. Fast or slow, its gonna getcha!

Jim you listening to Neil Young again?

Get some sleep!

Interesting answers. Kansas. Now that is good. I guess my Z is already at risk and I didn't even know it. I better start packing to move further inland. heh heh.

I didn't know fog could carry salt inland. I wonder what the film is that gets left on the windows. Just salt I guess.

Half a mile? Wow that is a longer distance for salt to carry than what I thought it could do. I remember being on vacation at the seashore and noticing an outside circuit breaker box showing signs of corrosion. It was about 400 yards from salt water.

Blue, I have wondered about cutting sheet metal out of JY newer cars to fix sheet metal on a Z due to better corrosion resistance.

When we have the wind from the south, sometimes sand all the way from the Sahara drops down on everything here. It happened a few weeks ago, my entire car was covered in fine sand... and that's over 1000's of KM of travel for the sand! Looks like this:

http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/128/590x/secondary/143092.jpg

Holy crapola I never thought sand could travel that far.

I saw a post on the net somewhere where someone lived close to a saltwater beach and they said they were always fighting rust though they didn't say anything about cars nor how close to the water they were.