McCullom Lake winters are hard on the finish of your car, truck or SUV with all that road salt.

Where McCullom Lake Road runs into Route 31, on the Northwest corner, is a gas station and that station has an automated carwash. This time of year, it’s not a bad idea to bring your car, truck or SUV over and use it. 

In fact, if you leave your McCullom Lake home, drive to Route 31 and turn left, in a short distance you’ll find Fast Eddies Full Service Car Wash and Detail Center. At Fast Eddies, though the car, truck or SUV still goes through an automated wash, it also receives the hands-on attention of the staff that goes through and over your vehicle inside and out.

While the one option above offers more attention to detail, whether you have an actual detailing of your vehicle or not, both have one thing in common; they offer a means of removing the detritus of winter driving from your car, truck or SUV. And that’s why it’s not a bad idea to pull in somewhere and give your vehicle a bath.

Probably the worst element of the aforementioned detritus is road salt. 

Road salt, or sodium chloride, is a blessing in these parts during the winter. It makes driving in winter conditions considerably safer. Working in tandem with the snowplow, which removes much of the snow from the road, road salt inhibits the moisture below the snow from freezing as easily.

As we know, water freezes at 32 degrees. In a McCullom Lake winter, the temperature drops below freezing with regularity. We would be driving on skating rinks virtually the entire winter season, if not for road salt.

The road salt mixes with moisture and creates a kind of salt brine. That brine creates a layer under the snow and ice so that ice above it is broken up by passing cars, trucks and SUVs. In the meantime, it’s virtually impossible for the brine to freeze.

That’s the good news about road salt. The bad news is what it does to your vehicle.

Sodium chloride doesn’t play well with your car, truck or SUV. In fact, the road salt creates a chemical reaction that will actually eat away at your vehicle. The process is called corrosion and, given a chance, it’s insidious. 

The road salt will eat away at your vehicle’s finish, undercarriage and, especially, according to Erie Insurance Company, to the brake and fuel lines. In respect to the latter two, not only is road salt a threat to your vehicle’s resale value, it’s also a threat to your safety. 

The solution is to remove that road salt from your car, truck or SUV. We can count on winter to visit McCullom Lake every year, and when know the snowplows will spread road salt behind them. What we can do is remove the road salt before it causes too much trouble.