Rustproofing – NH Needs to Catch Up with the Times

When it comes to rustproofing, New Hampshire really needs to catch up with the times. Misunderstanding and misinformation are rampant. It even showed up on the front page of yesterday’s Nashua Telegraph. In a light-hearted, anecdotal piece entitled “Darn Those Electrons, They Are Ruining Your Ride!” David Brooks writes about the woes of winter driving, including parking difficulties and road-salt-induced rust. “If it wasn’t for cars, winter would be just about perfect,” he starts out. The electrons he refers to are responsible for a chemical reaction that happens when iron meets oxygen under the right (or maybe we should say wrong) conditions. The steel that most cars are made of contains iron, and of course air contains oxygen and road salt contributes to the worst of all possible conditions. But then Brooks gets around to recommending a solution to the rusting problem, and that’s where – like most of the rest of us – he’s a little behind the times. Brooks says you just have to wash your car a lot, and that will take care of the problem. While washing your vehicle certainly prevents more rust than not washing it, it’s not exactly great advice, either. The problem – and the reason washing your car isn’t enough anymore – is that today’s deicing mixtures are not just rock salt and sand. Deicing, like most of the rest of the transportation world, has gone high-tech – or at least complicated. Sand is not used much anymore because it clogs up storm drains, and the salt may be the old rock salt standby, magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, or a blend of all three. Brine is sometimes used as well, either with or without granular salts. And here’s the big culprit: bonding agents are often added to the mix. Bonding agents can be as natural and innocent-sounding as beet juice, but they are anything but harmless to our vehicles. Their purpose is to keep the salt stuck to the roadway even after icemelt or a rain shower would normally wash them away. Of course, they are a great idea on an icy winter night, when you want the road to remain as ice-free as possible. But bonding agents also work on cars – and they work all too well. When that saltwater with bonding agent splashes up onto your vehicle, you can’t count on washing it off at the car wash. It’s too bad the bonding agent doesn’t know the difference between a road and a car. Our cars might last a lot longer if they did. A modern problem demands a modern solution, and fortunately, New Hampshire now has just that. The Rust Stop Pro in Concord and Deering provides rustproofing services designed for the challenges our vehicles face on today’s roads. Packages include Rustoration (a rust-converting restoration solution), wax/oil undercoating, and undercoating with the fluid film RS3000. Formulas similar to RS3000 have been recommended by independent automotive authorities to prolong the life of a vehicle. The Rust Stop Pro regularly monitors the environment that New Hampshire vehicles face, and constantly works to keep their rustproofing current.