Which is Worse? Road Salt or Sea Air?

i would say road salt.being a midwest body shop owner, the damage the road salt does is terrible. it get up inside all the weep holes, body seams and any mechanical fitting or fastener and corrodes the snot out of em. salt air would probably just land on the exterior surface of the vehicle and not get under or inside (unless you drove thru it).
 
Road salt. No comparison between a 20 year old car driven in Nebraska to a 20 year old car driven in Florida.
 
I dunno,but I rented a 1 year old car on Guam once and it had a rust hole in the TOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
My mom has a 91 Camaro that is pristine, and she lives right on the water in Florida. She?s had it since new. She has guys asking her to sell it all the time, she always says no, she is 83, and loves her Camaro!😎
 
I live in Maine (therefore road salt) and I can see the Atlantic ocean from my kitchen window (therefore sea air).

I ain't got a chance...
 
I used to live in Corpus Christi, Tx. The Fiat-Allis equipment dealership I worked at would lease new machines for projects out on Padre Island. I have seen a 1/4 inch steel hydraulic brake line that had NOT been painted almost double in size due to rust! Six months later we were fighting perforation leaks.

Body moulding strips on cars and trucks always held the salt and moisture, seemed to be the first place rust started.

Beagle
 
(quoted from post at 15:23:07 04/17/18) i would say road salt.being a midwest body shop owner, the damage the road salt does is terrible. it get up inside all the weep holes, body seams and any mechanical fitting or fastener and corrodes the snot out of em. salt air would probably just land on the exterior surface of the vehicle and not get under or inside (unless you drove thru it).

Road "salt" now includes calcium chloride in many places.....bad news for automobiles.

My son bought a nice little older Ford P.U. a few years ago that came from Florida. No rust where you would think there would be.....but all around the drip edge, along the top of the windshield, on the cowl under the hood. Probably would have been a little tuff for a body man to fix but at least the frame and wheel wells were in nice condition.
 
My father-in-law was an engineer for Ford and was involved in a several-year long corrosion study all over the USA. According to him - there was no overall difference. The rust just attacked metal in different areas. Note - I am talking salt-air versus road-salt. There is also the case of people driving trucks and cars in ocean water like when launching boats.
 
My brother lived on an island off RI. His car rusted badly and quickly. Paint was bad then panels started rusting right through.
 
I've lived on the coast of North Carolina and in the midwest Rust Belt, so I have a bit of experience with both. As far as vehicle damage goes, I'd say road salt is worse. Bathing the underside of your vehicle in concentrated brine each winter quickly eats up chassis, sheet metal and anything else made out of steel. Of course, if you're one of those folks who insist on driving your vehicle on the beach, it's pretty much the same thing.

John is right that the coastal environment works on everything, not just cars. It's not just the salt, heat and humidity accelerate the corrosion process. And it works on autos that are parked. I had to replace two radiators on my pickup truck in about five years; Salt spray from the ocean ate them up.
 
Steel structures, concrete also for that mater, really take a beating from ocean waters salt air-we had to paint our coastal steel bridges in half the time period we did out upland bridges
 
road salt does a lot of damage to bridge decks, and the joints between spans always leak so the road salt gets down to the ends of the beams, the bearings supporting them, and the concrete under the bearings
 
By far..........road salt.
Salty sea air is quite limited to the area it effects.

I lived in Michigan 40 years.
Lived in Pensacola, FL 15 years.
Now in Crystal River, FL.
Both Florida residences were/are five miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
Evidence of corrosion due to salt air peters out within one mile or less from the coast.

Down here we get rusty top surfaces due to so many people parking outside in the sunshine. Sun just fries the paint off over time.
 
the one mile distance is pretty much a standard along the coast--NYSDOT recommends that any steel bridge constructed within one mile of the coast utilize weathering steel--the rust doesn't flake off like common steel
 
(quoted from post at 07:15:37 04/17/18) Been pondering this lately. The coasts are a corrosive environment aren't they?
road salt by far....they lay it on thick where i live and it rusts many vehicles.
 
They tell me that chloride they put on gravel roads to reduce the dust is just as corrosive as winter salt. They put it on the road by our cabin, it sure works.
 
(quoted from post at 18:40:14 04/17/18) Steel structures, concrete also for that mater, really take a beating from ocean waters salt air-we had to paint our coastal steel bridges in half the time period we did out upland bridges

Look at the many short bridges and overpasses on the main highways in the Northeast and see how much the critical I-beams are affected by road salt.
 

I have lived within thirty miles of the ocean for fifty years. I have often wondered what is this salt air that inland people talk about. Is there some means of including NaCl molecules along with the O2 and Co2? I am pretty sure that if the wind blows very strongly that the spray may carry a couple hundred yards, but other than that air is the same everywhere except for where there is smog.
 
I have a good friend who was a missionary in south america for 20 + years. His wife got to the place where she could not breathe. She had a fungus growing in her lungs, Dr's said the only way to cure it was a lung replacement. It was going to be several months until they could get to her. She went back to South America and stayed on the sea coast for several months. When she came back to the US there was no trace of the fungus in her lungs. Salt air is good for something besides rusting your machines
 
I live in Minnesota where the roads are terrible for rusting vehicles. I once bought a Dresser 520 4 wheel drive loader that came from California. It was very rusty on the cab and engine hood and enclosures. Must have been near the Pacific.
DWF
 

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