so who here has the honor of the Focus being there winter car? I do i do. See it wouldn't be so bad here in Chicago if it wasn't for it being all like "2% chance for quarter of an inch of snow" thats it 2 inches of salt on the road within 15mins. If it wasn't for that damn salt winters would be ok. So any tips for like anti rusting ur car? like the bottom

replace w/ stainless steel, or just wash your undercarriage

i get to drive my car in the winter, yay! and they salt here like there's no tomorrow!

[:(!]

Same here! I cant wait. My first winter with the focus! I live in upper upstate Ny too! We've already got snow showers! Although they dont salt that much up here there method is taking pounds of dirt and throwing it all over the damn road

yeh we use sand here

Originally posted by mofocus
replace w/ stainless steel, or just wash your undercarriage

replace what with stainless steel? Also to wash undercarriage just take it to a do it ur self car wash and just power wash it under neath?

Yeah my plan for avoiding the rust was just not to drive on snowy days! So looks like im on vacation from November to March

well it's not the snow that makes ur car rust really it's the salt and u can't avoind that even like a week after it snows. Of course we wont' drive on snowy days but after the snow has been plowed it's the salt that remains.

wash your undercarriage

just make sure to clean the rims once in a while during the winter u should be fine

I will drive my car 500 miles a week...on the highway...every week this winter...just like the last one...and the next three atleast. Salt...like you mean " look, my car is white..." Yeah lots of salt here. And it's so freaking cold here, you gotta wait till it's warm enough for the car washes to open...the everybody hits them at the same time...winter...sucks

Winter? What's winter? [bootyshak

Sorry, had to. [:D] In fairness, the rain we get in the area where I live can be surprisingly harsh, kinda like acid rain. I'm lucky to have access to a garage, and I plan on leaving the Focus parked inside it on those rainy days, and slumming it in my grandma's old Mazda pickup...

Originally posted by mofocus
wash your undercarriage

so jack up the bad boy and soap it up?

A warm weather guy....worried about rain...funny....just kidding. I grew up in New Orleans...no lack of rain there either...but washing the car year round sure was easy.
The I moved to Denver...salt/sand/gravel on the roads when it snowed. Sand blasted front ends/windshields...and lots of cracked windshields...unbelievable. Now its mainly salt. I gotta say though, I put one coat of Klasse all in one and two coats of Klasse high gloss and the front end is in great shape after one winter. Hopefully it works again!

Klasse is good stuff - expensive as hell though, that's why I stopped using it.

Solaris, can't you take the car to one of those "do-it-yourself" car washes with the high pressure spray and clean the bottom of the car that way?

thats what i asked if u scroll up but then Mofocus just replyed again with "wash ur undercarrige" so i dunno but thats what i'm gunna do. I'm gunna try and keep up the whole wash every 2 weeks wax once a month but i don't think i'm gunna do the wax =\

well sorry i thought i made it clear,guess i didnt, do like SVT4ME says, and what i said, that is what ppl who live near the ocean do

They use liquid salt AND sand here, so not only does our undercarrage get bent over, the paint on the front of your car gets F'd too!

i drive my car during winter....

[hihi]

Joel

I must not love my car as much as someone willing to jack the car up and scrub the underbody... Dude, after it snows, and the roads have been salted, and the weather is nice, take it to a car wash. Hell, i only took it to the car wash if the weather forecast was good for a straight week last winter. It's the bottum of my car, and i have a stainless steel exhaust, i could care less, seriously. Just worry about the paint.

Yeah, I take my car through the automatic wash just to get all that cinder crap off the bottom of my car. This will be my Focus' first winter and plus I have stainless steel front to back. I never drive my car in snow (well maybe if there is a dusting) because I have a boyfriend with a 4-Wheel drive Ranger that likes to go out and play in it[:D]

Salt, what's that? They don't use that sh@t here. This will be my Focus first winter too. I'm glad I don't live in Minnesota anymore, they get hella snow, and use hella salt.

I drove my zx3 lots last winter. Took it up to the ski resort 25 times last year. On a nice windy ass snow covered road. But my zx3 with some bridgestone blizzacks, 4 wheel drive better get outa my damn way. haha just kiddin, but it does do very well in the snow. Oh and its sand on the roads here, not salt, dosnt seem to get to bad though.

No way in hell am I gonna drive mine in winter, we use sand and salt here, and if we get just 1 flake of snow everybody goes ape^&*(, thats why ill use my Beretta this winter.

Well down in good ol Texas, we're lucky to see the frozen stuff. If we do have just the least bit of ice, the whole state shuts down [hihi] . I only had mine for half a winter last yr and no bad weather, so hoping for some this yr to test it out and play in [driving] [:D] . I love the winter as far as to live in, but for my car, I can't stand it. Always raining which equals to always a dirty car [:(!] , and never a big enough break from it to keep it clean for more than 1 or 2 days. Atleast the summer only has dust which I can handle cause it blows off and it's not as noticeable. Regarding washing the undercarriage, that's pretty common since. All you have to do is wash out underneath with the hose or take it to the car wash to do it. We have alot of those touchless car washes around here, which i'm assuming they are all over the states, and they have that wash undercarriage feature which is a no brainer [hihi] . I only wash my car maybe twice a month in the winter compared to once a week atleast if not more in the spring and summer and always atleast wash under the fenderwalls when I do wash it if not more.

Jumped on this late but, I put that POR-15 paint on the undergarage of my cars and it works well to resist rust. Now I know you may look at this and laugh being that I am from VA but, I was stationed in upstate NY 30 miles below Canada and had this done after a full undercarrage cleaning and no rust appeared. The stuff is awesome.

ahh winter can't wait to rip up snow for the first time in the Foci - let's see...reverse doughnuts, e-brakes around light posts, e-brakes @ 60mph+....so much fun can't wait - need snow tires

Well I am in Colorado and we get dumped on from time to time and they use sand and this other stuff that isnt supposed to rust out your car. But people around here drive like wuss's when there is snow. Must be all the CA's and TX's.

[rofl] ryter. I totally agree. Even though i've been a texan all my life, I love risk and i'm by far a wuss when it comes to that stuff. The last time we had any serious accumulations, I had my 99 sentra at the time, and I had a blast in it even though it wasn't as small and easy to manuver as my foci. People around here don't have too much common since and think it takes a genius to drive in that stuff.

I didn't see heated seats listed as an option there. Before I had them I thought "What for?" now it's more like "Oh my aching back that pays for these damned heated seats that feel sooo good!"

Originally posted by inline_engine_lover
i get to drive my car in the winter, yay! and they salt here like there's no tomorrow!

[:(!]

Me too. Sucks a**![mad]

I will not ever drive the Focus in the winter.. I'm too picky about the paint and ice and paint dont mix in the winter!

Haha...mine stays still buried under 2 feet of snow.
But uncovering it is a pain in the a**!

my car has a 10 year rust warranty, I read through the thing, and it's pretty bulletproof, so I won't be worrying about it for a while.

Buy a beater car! Use it for the winter and then dump it.

Drove my old ZX3 last winter, threw some snow tires on her and she was great~!!

Tiffany

my new 2002 ZX5 is my daily and winter driver, hope I won't run into any problems, but it sure beats the problems I'd face with the stang in the snow, haha, stang has problems keeping tires planted firm on a summer day....haha

and as for anything going wrong do to winter, all I gotta say is thank God for the Ford 5 yr, 100k extended bumper to bumper warrantee I've got :), just gotta love it

Jim

my Focus lives ina garage and if it's snowing crazly i'll take my moms Jeep Liberty