Depending upon where you live in the country, winter months bring along many contaminants to your vehicle including road salt.
Unfortunately, road salt is a necessary evil - it helps us drive on our roads but brings many problems to our vehicles. If left on your vehicle, the salt will eventually corrode and rust any metal including body panels.
Simply rinsing your vehicle or waiting for a heavy rain shower is not enough to fully remove the salt and its effects.
In this post I will go through the steps to help you properly remove road salt.
Firstly, the salt on your vehicle needs to be neutralized because water and/or soap will simply just move the salt around and any left over will still cause issues long-term.
Neutralizing can be done with a “mineral deposit remover”. Many companies make one, but my personal choice is Optimum’s MDR. Mix 4 ounces of MDR with 1/2 ounce of their Optimum No Rinse solution (ONR) into a gallon of water and you have yourself an excellent road salt neutralizer.
Spray affected areas with the solution (making sure to pay attention to door jambs and other areas that tend to collect moisture) and allow it to neutralize the salt for a few minutes before thoroughly rinsing the vehicle.
Once fully rinsed, you can now wash the vehicle with your normal wash process.
And don’t forget to always reapply any protection to your vehicle - wax, sealant, or coating!