I have a beautiful 240 in brand new showroom condition, and I am concerned about moving to a severe winter climate (Buffalo, NY). I will not have a garage, so the car will be sitting in snow for months at a time.

Will being in such an environment inevitably destroy my car no matter what lengths I go to take care of it (anti-rust coatings, regular car washes etc)?

I'm scared because I've never seen an old car up north that wasn't significantly rusty.

 

if you are worried about keeping it, find a rental garage place for the winters or something. Or move out of New York. I hear the Southwest is pretty gentle on cars.

 

So you don't think I'd be able to stop the rust no matter what?

 

without a garage, probably not.

You could always coat every piece of exposed metal, but that would be a pain in the *** both in labor and in terms of heat dissipation.

edit\\ to that degree, though, you could probably minimize it on vital parts, but not stop it completely. that just means when the summer comes around, you sand it off (hopefully it's just surface rust) and re-coat it to keep rust from coming back.

maybe build a carport for it or something, to keep the snow out?

 

Get a really good car cover.

Also you can spray the entire under side of the car. My dad sprayed his 79 TransAM when he lived in Chicago, with.....umm I think it was HIgh heat black spraypaint. There is still no rust on it 30 years later, but it has been in Cali for the past 19 years.

 

Yeah. As I'm sure you know, cars don't rust as well here as they do in most other places...


didn't stop to think about high heat black spraypaint. That's actually a really good idea. I wouldn't worry about spraying the ehxuast parts, but clean off the underbelly really good, jack it up, make sure there's no sensitive parts exposed, and spray everything down really good. let it dry when it's still on the jackstands (so it gets good airflow, it'll dry quicker), about 20mins later if it's a decently warm day with good airflow, you can drop it off the stands, park it, and that should cover most of your rust problem.

 

I spent years doing summer stock up north and learned snow doesn't make a car rust, water does...and salt, and neither can get up under the car if it's parked. Keep off wet, salty roads and it will be like living in the rainy south.

PS the rust buckets you see are winter cars, the nice ones get worked on all winter in the garage and then come out for summer and fall.

 

Just get a car cover, and if you drive it rinse the snow out. Like miami said, snow doesn't make the car rust, its the salt. Also being close to Canada you can go up there and get the bottom of the car "oiled"

 

I was reading down though this thread ready to pounce with the answer and then I saw that "SoundMiami" already said it. But it does bear repeating. It's not the snow, it's the salt and other de-iceing stuff that's put on the roadways during the cold months that does the damage. Here in Tennessee, we never even think about cars rusting out because it's just not an issue. But I did live in St. Louis, Mo for a time and folks up there would park their pride and joys during the winter and drive a "sacrificial" beater until Spring arrived. If I had to move back up north, it's what I would definately do as well. When I was up there, there was a company called Ziebart. Are they still in business? Their tagline was "It's Us or Rust."