Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - While temperatures in Western New York finally eclipsed the freezing mark for the first time in nearly a month, winter is not quite ready to go quietly into the night.
With that being the case, roadways across the region are still likely to see plenty of rock salt spread in an attempt to prevent icing on the roadways and also creating some additional traction for vehicles.
What is the rock salt doing to vehicles this time of year? While it certainly helps with melting the ice and creating some traction on the roadways, Bob Gugino from Bison Automotive says it's actually a silent killer to your car.
"The salt that we get gets into every piece of the car that you can think of. Whether it's the braking system, the electronic system, and also, of course, we know about the body and the fenders, and the things with the rust," said Gugino in an interview with WBEN.
With vehicles Gugino is doing maintenance work to this time of year, the biggest problem he deals with due to the road salt is corrosion.
"It gets into the braking systems, it gets into the electrical systems and things like that, and it really starts to wreak havoc on those things," Gugino explained. "When you go to use your brakes, the rotors get rusty, or you get salt and some electrical connections and they rot them out and causes issues with that as well. There's many things the salt can affect in your vehicle."
That's why one of the more important things people can do this time of year is rinse it off with the help of a car wash.
"Wash it all the time, many times through car washes, automatic car washes, to make sure that that salt is rinsed, especially the undercarriage of the vehicle, because that's really where it affects it the most," Gugino said.
Gugino adds it's important to regularly have vehicles rust proofed and undercoated so the salt doesn't affect it anymore than it can, and also let the car last longer and have more resale value when you are ready to trade it in or sell it.
"When you first get the car, especially if it's a fairly new car, get it rust proofed and undercoated. That really helps with the prevention of the salt eroding the body and the rest of the components of the vehicle," Gugino noted. "After that, once the weather breaks and the weather turns, it's important to get the car cleaned."
Another important part of the car to keep well maintained this time of year with rock salt is the inside of the vehicle.
"The salt gets on our feet, and it gets into the rugs and seeps into the floor of the vehicles and starts rotting out components inside the vehicle as well," Gugino added. "It's really important to get the rug shampooed, to get the mats cleaned off, to really kind of get the salt out of the vehicle when it comes to the weather breaking, maybe in April or so, when we finally start to get good weather here in Western New York."
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