Magnesium Chloride & Your Environment (Denver, Loveland: to live, agricultural, deposit)

[Idunn]

Q: A vehicle whose undercarriage was washed and that had rust inhibitor sprayed on it, and when it was 13 years old the axle rusted in two?

A: It did. I never looked much under there but after that happened I saw that the metal parts were all spotted with corrosion and the main axle in the rear … The gentleman at the garage blamed it on the newer methods of salting the roads. He said it was happening to a lot of cars. [1]


The preceding is an excerpt from a discussion of the effects of salt use on roads. It is from the Maine forum, but applicable to Colorado in effects on vehicles. The reference is from page 5, although items of interest throughout the thread.

Calcium chloride is mentioned in that thread, so possibly the salt in question. In Colorado magnesium chloride has been used, as well as other types of applications. The specifics depend upon county and jurisdiction. But although some departments now claim to be using more benign substances, if salt based, then still a salt.

1) Maine's rusty trucks

[jazzlover]

Any mechanic who works on vehicles driven where mag chloride is used will tell you what a car-destroyer it is. As I've posted before, people should focus on the REAL reason that mag chloride is so heavily used: Because we have raised a legion of people who are too reckless, ignorant, and/or stupid to drive competently on a snowpacked road--despite having better tires, better traction control systems, and better braking systems than were available a generation or two ago when people seemed able to drive competently on winter roads without any of those things, including mag chloride. Just another case of the public "dummying down" and the government spending tons of taxpayer money (and damaging the environment) to compensate for collective public stupidity. Before someone chimes in with statistics about death rates and numbers in auto crashes decreasing over the years, I would submit that the main reason for that is because of the numerous active and passive restraint systems, along with better "crumple zone" designs that have made modern vehicles better able to protects drivers and passengers in a wreck--not because today's drivers are more skilled or adept at driving safely. They're not.

[snofarmer]

A blast from the past.
Yes MagClor is a corrosive , all chlorides are.
But lets think about this for a moment.

The axel is much thicker than a lot of other parts that are under the vehicle that are subject to the effects of MagClor and they are not rusted to the point of failure?
Maney axels are known for letting go at the welds where the tubes enters the carrier.

If the MagClor exposer did do this The wiring would have need to be replaced long ago as MagClor likes to wick up the wiring eating up the soft copper as it migrates.

Originally Posted by Idunn

Q: A vehicle whose undercarriage was washed and that had rust inhibitor sprayed on it, and when it was 13 years old the axle rusted in two?

A: It did. I never looked much under there but after that happened I saw that the metal parts were all spotted with corrosion and the main axle in the rear … The gentleman at the garage blamed it on the newer methods of salting the roads. He said it was happening to a lot of cars. [1]


The preceding is an excerpt from a discussion of the effects of salt use on roads. It is from the Maine forum, but applicable to Colorado in effects on vehicles. The reference is from page 5, although items of interest throughout the thread.

Calcium chloride is mentioned in that thread, so possibly the salt in question. In Colorado magnesium chloride has been used, as well as other types of applications. The specifics depend upon county and jurisdiction. But although some departments now claim to be using more benign substances, if salt based, then still a salt.

1) Maine's rusty trucks

[The Homogenizer]

Originally Posted by md21722

I think most of those East Coast state inspection laws came from bygone days when road salt would eat through the frame so quickly the cars were in fact a danger to drive. With the galvanizing they have today it really isn't necessary on newer cars. Personally when I hear people talk about "junk on the roads in states that don't have state inspections" I think they drank the cool-aid and need to feel like they are getting something for their money.

A buddy of mine moved to VA on a short term work assignment. His truck failed for ball joints that didn't have any slop in them. He went someplace other than the shop to get them changed rather than deal with the "paint and pass" method at the first shop that wanted $1,500. This type of thing happens in many states with state required inspections.

Frames were never galvanized and the steel was so thick, it took decades of neglect to rust through. If owners didn't wash their cars regularly, the bodies rusted, but the old steel panels were so thick, they rarely rusted through either. It wasn't until the flimsy 70's Japanese cars that rusted through panels were a problem, but the unibodies didn't rust through.

The U.S. automakers later began using thinner panels but were slow to raise the quality until the Japanese competition, which had been coming up, forced it. At that time, you could see with a naked eye the quality difference between Japanese sheet metal and American garbage.

In any case, salt was never a problem. One must be extremely lazy to leave salt on their car long enough to cause rust, and in the car culture of the East, maintaining one's car is much like being agreeable in Colorado.

[md21722]

How much experience do you have back East?

I've seen spring perches, control arms, and body panels rust through on both domestic and imports....

It took decades for the auto makes to come up with designs and galvanizing so rust was not a problem.

It only takes one trip through a snow storm and salted roads for rust to appear.

[McGowdog]

I've been back east and it seems to me that almost everything rusts or is rusting... fence posts, signs, etc.

I've seen rust pouring down onto the paint of fairly new cars... like from below the rear view mirrors.

Colorado and much of the high mountain deserts of the West are very dry and we do not have near the problems of rust that humid climates and places that use heavy salt have.

Add: now, although we don't have rust, we do have drastic effects from the sun which destroys paint jobs... once the clear coat wears off... and which also destroys car interiors. The sun is brutal up here.

[md21722]

Originally Posted by McGowdog

I've been back east and it seems to me that almost everything rusts or is rusting... fence posts, signs, etc.

I've seen rust pouring down onto the paint of fairly new cars... like from below the rear view mirrors.

Colorado and much of the high mountain deserts of the West are very dry and we do not have near the problems of rust that humid climates and places that use heavy salt have.

Exactly. They don't call it the Rust Belt for nothing.

[The Homogenizer]

Originally Posted by md21722

How much experience do you have back East?

I've seen spring perches, control arms, and body panels rust through on both domestic and imports....

It took decades for the auto makes to come up with designs and galvanizing so rust was not a problem.

It only takes one trip through a snow storm and salted roads for rust to appear.

Enough experience to share the facts about salt and cars with Westerners. The problem with rust was that the quality of the sheet steel was low and the processors, particularly the Americans, coated over garbage. The imperfections caused the coating to break away in little specks, and that left bare metal. The underbody of the car, the members to which you're referring and the frame, were never galvanized. They were painted or oiled, and frequently treated with undercoating.

It didn't take the U.S. automakers years to overcome rust; it took the Japanese competition to force them to stop producing junk. (Another edit.) To understand what I mean by junk: American manufacturers were building cars with parts that were pre-rusted. Before the panels were painted, they were coated gray. They weren't galvanized (as I previously said) they were coated with a primer. When the parts came from the processor, the rust under the coating was visible. It certainly wasn't from salt.

What you may be referring to is galvanization of unibody members, which challenges your theory since I never had to have a car inspected and that would cause problems in the dates because I began driving when unibodies were becoming popular and never had an inspection.

It may take one trip for rust to appear on bare steel, but all the steel has always been coated. The car must first run over something to expose the metal, and then run through salt, and then be overlooked for many years by every mechanic that looks under there before real damage is caused.

Originally Posted by md21722

Exactly. They don't call it the Rust Belt for nothing.

It's called the rust belt because when the factories close, they become rusting behemoths, and there are many of them.

BTW: I'm not trying to sell you on salt. The fact is that the West has lots of sand. The East has lots of salt. My preference is salt, but not at the price it'd take to get it here.

Originally Posted by McGowdog

Colorado and much of the high mountain deserts of the West are very dry and we do not have near the problems of rust that humid climates and places that use heavy salt have.

Add: now, although we don't have rust, we do have drastic effects from the sun which destroys paint jobs... once the clear coat wears off... and which also destroys car interiors. The sun is brutal up here.

Don't forget the effect of sand on glass and finish.

[jazzlover]

Salt and water on exposed steel will cause rust over time. Period. The difference between the East and West is the absence of constant moisture and humidity in the West. Thus, exposure to salt AND water has always been less in the arid West. Also, until relatively recent decades, there was not a lot of salt used on roads in the Rocky Mountain region. That has changed--in a very bad way. Now, Colorado and other Rocky Mountain states are addicted to using magnesium chloride on the roads in winter. Magnesium chloride is a salt--and is even more corrosive than sodium chloride because it is solution that clings to surfaces and is very difficult to wash off. Much of the damage from mag chloride is not seen by the average driver. It is occurring on the undercarriage of the car where most people don't think to wash thoroughly when washing the vehicle.

By the way, there is plenty of salt produced in the Rocky Mountain region. Both sodium chloride and magnesium chloride are heavily produced from the area in and around the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

[The Homogenizer]

Originally Posted by jazzlover

Salt and water on exposed steel will cause rust over time.

Had there been a contrary statement?

By the way, there is plenty of salt produced in the Rocky Mountain region. Both sodium chloride and magnesium chloride are heavily produced from the area in and around the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

I see that you need some help with polite exits too? I've been using the "both East and West are great but different" routine. It's true, but requires a little fudging of facts at times; thanks for the defudging