By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

It’s snow and ice season — the season when cars are driven on salted roads.

While salt may make slick roads safer, salt on a car’s side can lead to rust and corrosion — bad news for a car’s paint.

A good idea to ward off damage is to visit a car wash when weather is warm enough.

A car wash that sprays up from the bottom will clean lower parts where salt splatters up from wheels.

Doug Copenhaver, co-owner of Mirror Image auto detailing in Marion, emphasized that car care was just as important during winter as it is during summer.

“Cleaning your car inside and out should be something you do regularly” Copenhaver said. “You wash the salt off so it doesn’t damage the clear coat and the pain. Keeping salt off the lower portions of the car helps prevent rust. That helps maintain the value of the car.”

Barry Allen, owner of Webster Auto Service in Marion, agreed that drivers needed to wash underneath their vehicles.

At a manual car wash, they can get down and spray up underneath the body.

Automated car washes often spray the underside of the vehicle automatically.

“We see the effects of it with rusted out brake lines,” Allen said. “It’s a lot more rusted out brake lines than we ever used to see.”

Road maintenance used to involve application of a salt and sand mix. Now it’s often a chemical mix, Allen said.

“It just makes it more important to wash that stuff off,” he said.

He recommends customers wash their cars as soon as weather warms up after a snow.

Rhino Car and Truck Wash on US-56 north of Marion offers undercarriage washing. The business was purchased Jan. 4 by Travis and Andrea Parmley.

Travis Parmley said the couple plan to continue operating it as it was run by Bruce Skiles.

Skiles purchased the then-derelict US-56 Car and Truck Wash in 2018 and upgraded it with automatic equipment.

Andrea Parmley's name was misreported in some editions.