To drive in the winter, or not?

[R_Lefebvre]

Last winter I bought my first truck, which is this 2004 Disco SE. I've grown to really like the truck and I want it to last. I picture myself still owning it in 20 years, and I'll be the crotchety old guy with the old truck talking about the good old days and how easy it is to work on an old fuel injected gasoline engine instead of the new fangled fuel-cell trucks which require a PhD to work on...



So, I want the thing to last. The truck appears to have come from Montreal, where the roads get salted pretty good. Probably went through 3 winters over there before I got it. It's got just a bit of light rust on the frame, but not too bad. There's more damage on the floorpan from water leaks on the inside that it would appear there is from salt attack on the outside.

I live in a rural area between Toronto and Montreal. We get a moderate amount of snow, but they don't salt the roads much. Usually just sand. However, my commute will involve a short jaunt (<5km) on the freeway which gets salted.

My trackday car only saw 1 winter before it started getting stored, but it's such a joy to work on since it's so clean underneath. I'd like to store the truck too, but I don't have a lot of money lying around to buy a winter beater right now. And I don't have room for both in my garage so the truck would be stored in the yard somewhere.

Is it better to just have the truck oiled and drive it, or stored outside? Is there any hope of this thing lasting in any case?

 

[Alaska Mike]

It's a car. Use it. Do whatever sane people there do to protect it from the elements, but use it. You can Waxoyl the frame and generally treat the spots with rust.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

That's probably what I'll do this year, but try to find a beater for next year. One other thing I'm not sure about, there's a lot of mud underneath, probably make the oil coating less effective. How can I clean underneath really well before having it oil sprayed? I was thinking about driving it up with two ramps on one side, tilt it over a bit so I could spray it underneath. But... I dunno...

What do the sane people do? Unprotected cars are finished in about 15 years max. Protected cars last about 20. Anybody who wants to keep a car a long time, stores it. Period.

What's it like up there in Alaska? Obviously long, hard winters, but do they even both salting? I bet they probably don't because everybody has proper winter tires. I wish they'd do that here. "We'll plow, we'll sand, but we won't salt. You should have winter tires. If you try to make it with no-seasons, that's your problem."

 

[EricWS]

What do the sane people do? Unprotected cars are finished in about 15 years max. Protected cars last about 20. Anybody who wants to keep a car a long time, stores it. Period.

Drive it and start galvanizing things. If you have rust from a leak that means there is more you don't know about. Unless you live in the desert, might as well enjoy it.

My Defender had been stored for a long time before I got it. IMO, rover engines do not do well in storage - leaks.

It's a truck. Use it.

 

[Maddmatt]

Mud on the frame: If you've still got your hoses out (I don't know how early the freezes set in in Ontario ) park your truck on the yard over a lawn sprinkler - works wonders at getting mud off, and waters the yard too.
-Matt

 

[Oilburner]

I spend 20-30$ at the coin wash and blast the underside, get it spotless, let it dry for a week, and oil-spray it. It works, but it's not ideal.

 

[UnfrozenCaveman]

I'm not in Ontario, but the Great State of Iowa must have an unlimited budget for road salt....and in the past few years they've decided to pre-spray streets and highways with some brine mixture!

I've had the '94 Disco from new. It gets more washing underneath than on the paintwork, and it's been sprayed...not annually...with homemade waxoyl underneath kinda' regularly.

The underside looks pretty good...but the lower portions of the door skins are getting pretty ratty

 

[ExploringNH]

If you park it for a season, it will end up 100x rustier than if you drove it all winter and never washed it.

Just drive it, wash it occasionally, and use some type of wax or oil based undercoating if you really want to go the distance.

 

[Zorro]

I live in Montreal ... there's no way around it. If you want to keep a car for a long time, store it in a heated garage during winter.
Last year I checked out an old Toyota 80 series (92, maybe) from California ... I couldn't believe it had less rust than my 2 year old car.

This being said, I wouldn't do it for a Disco ... I mean, you can always go down to AZ to buy another one. Flip side, if it's an expo rig and you don't DD it, you could use it every other weekend and not ruin it too much.