Driving your D on salt treated surfaces will cause frame corrosion, PERIOD. You may be able to slow it, but you will not prevent it. All the hope and wishful thinking in the world will not change that. So, if you plan to drive it in the winter you have two choices as I see it. 1st, take the big plunge now and install an aftermarket stainless steel frame. Problem solved. Or, drive it now as is, and replace the current frame with the stainless frame later after deterioration. One way or another you will be having the frame swapped. I suggest you put the car away for the winter and save yourself the expense of what will happen otherwise.
Pete Lucas suggests not starting your car during winter storage. I tried to do a lot of research on this and I found there is an argument for both starting or not starting. That was no help. I have a Trans Am stored in NY for the winter. I start it every month. I let it run for 30-45 minutes, so it reaches operating temp. During that time I run the transmission through the gears, back it out and back in the garage, run the A/C, cycle the HVAC through all the settings, open and close the power windows, and try to cycle all I can. I hold it at 1800-2100 RPM for a bit too. As good as a 25 mile exercise run up a freeway? No, but in my opinion better than not running it at all. And because my T/A is an '87 I would not consider driving it on a salt treated road because I love the car too much to put at risk of deterioration just because I want to drive it. I also used fuel stabilizer and topped the tank off before putting it away. Right? Wrong? Don't know, but what I'm doing seems right to me.
Dan W.
VIN 16192
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