Peter Bailey, of Pete’s Auto Sales & Service in Windham, is baffled.
The corrosion and rust on cars coming into his shop this summer is something he’s never witnessed in his 30 years in the business.
Brake lines are completely corroded. Undercarriages are rusted brown. Rotors, gas tanks, chassis and trailer hitches are all ruined by rust problems.
During the past two years, Bailey has seen a dramatic increase in rust on cars five to 10 years old. Many of these vehicles are so rusted that repair is no longer an option, he said.
“We’re just seeing a lot of rusted-out cars sooner than they should be,” Bailey said.
Bailey believes the culprit is liquid calcium chloride, a corrosive additive the Windham Public Works Department, as well as many Maine road crews use, that greatly enhances the ability of rock salt to melt winter snow.
If vehicles aren’t washed outside and underneath properly during the winter, the calcium and salt residue can remain in the undercarriage and start corroding parts, he said. He speculates the heat of summer may also enhance the calcium’s ability to rust auto parts.
Windham Automotive on Route 302 is seeing similar corrosion problems on the vehicles in their repair shop, but it’s hard to judge whether there is an increase or not because of constant rust problems from the heavy use of rock salt on roads during the winter, said owner Ron Eby.
However, the calcium does seem to be affecting parts that were not affected before by the rock salt alone. And this can lead to some serious safety issues with corroded cars.
“We see more rust build-up that results in failure of brake lines than we used to – corrosion a little quicker, deeper and more corrosive than in the past,” Eby said.
Local motorists aren’t the only ones having these problems. The town of Windham is replacing two new Public Works trucks, at a cost of more than $100,000 each, because of corrosion problems on two 12-year-old trucks. The replacement trucks will have new stainless-steel plow bodies.
“We’ve gone to stainless steel because of the rust,” said Public Works Director Doug Fortier.
Fortier admits that the increase in salt and calcium use has led to corrosion problems on both private and town vehicles. The town began adding liquid calcium during winter plowing about eight years ago and now spreads 6-to-8 gallons of liquid calcium and 400-to-600 pounds of salt per lane mile on Windham roads during a snow storm.
There has been an increase in the amount of salt and calcium applied to the roads as more and more residents expect the roads to be “dry and black” immediately after a storm, he said.
The use of rock salt alone has nearly doubled in the past decade from 1,800 tons to 3,000 tons of salt per winter.
“Because the public wants the roads black and dry, it has forced towns to use more chemicals to do it,” Fortier said. “And the chemicals we use today are corrosive chemicals.”
Many other towns in Maine also use liquid calcium. Neighboring Standish is one. Other towns use many tons more rock salt as well, Fortier said, to literally “melt the snow” off the road to reduce the amount of plowing.
Fortier recognizes the sharp increase in salt and calcium use driven by public demand for clear roads and has begun experimenting with the different levels and layering of salt and calcium to reduce the amount used each year.
Public Works trucks are now outfitted with computer systems to evenly disperse salt and calcium on the roads.
There are alternatives to liquid calcium chloride, such as magnesium chloride, but Fortier has not heard of any towns using these alternatives with much success.
The use of calcium has helped roads become less slick. Liquid calcium and salt mixture prevents bonding of snow to the road and keeps a steady melt rate at extremely low temperatures. Windham uses a “corrosion-inhibitor” in the liquid calcium to reduce rust, but the problem continues.
The trade off, Fortier said, is that if residents want the major arterial roads, like Route 302, to be clear by the end of a snow storm, then the heavy dispersement of liquid calcium and salt is needed.
A rusted pick-up truck suspended at Pete
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