> kinda hard to wash your car when the temp is below freezing..
> which is the
> case in most northeast states the majority of the winter.
> you car gets covered with salt in october, and stays that way till
> april.

no kidding!!! and there's another problem ... if you take your car to
those drive-through car wash thingies, lots of them are required to
RECYCLE their water ... which means you're getting salty water all
over the top and sides and wherever on your car from the last smuck
that drove through, and all the others since the last time they
changed the water, if ever. :(

and there's another problem ... if you do happen to drive through one
of those car washes on a cold day after getting slush sprayed all over
the sides of your bus, DO NOT GET OUT of the bus to wipe water off the
windows. or if you must, leave the door(s) open!! from personal
experience, i can tell you that the water runoff can freeze and the
door will not open. so there you are, jacket-less, outside the bus,
with its engine merrily puffing along, sneering at your stupidity, and
it's getting colder by the minute. if the rear hatch hadn't been less
frozen, don't know what i would have done. :(

so rust in the northern tier of states and wherever they use salt on
the roads is just a fact of life. any brand new car will have rust
appear after about two and a half to three years. unless you take
extreme measures to prevent it ... like washing UNDERNEATH the bus
after every time you drive it, even after the snow as melted (have to
wait til after the spring rains come and wash the dried salt off the
roads).

all of which is another reason i moved south. i can deal with tornados
and kudzu (have to cut it back every day or it'll cover your
bus/house/yard) and fire ants, and yes, even the summer heat. but cold
AND rust, well, it just got to be too much. my daily driver was a 1970
beetle, and one day i kicked at the big ice blob that was hanging off
the bottom rear of my front fender ... and about a foot of my fender
came off with the ice. it was that rusted underneath. had to replace
the gas tank in 20 degree weather (it was a warm spell) one day, cause
i lost ten gallons of gas in about four miles of steady driving
(barely made it back to the parking lot) cause the rust on the bottom
of the gas tank finally give way.

so basically, you pays your money, and you picks your poison.
unca joel