By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
CARIBOU, Maine — Spending a little extra time and money to protect a vehicle from the ravages of winter roads is a sound investment according to Ken Westin, instructor of automotive body repair at the Caribou Regional Technology Center.
“If you can’t maintain your car through the winter months, you could actually lose the ability to have your car inspected within a few years due to corrosion, body rot and other factors,” Westin said. At the tech center, Westin and his students talk about how one of the best defenses against those issues is trying to keep a clean car throughout the winter.
“If it’s not convenient for you to wash it yourself, go to the car wash and make sure to get the underbody wash,” he said.
The reason winter roads are so harsh on vehicles, Westin explained, is because of the products used to keep streets ice-free and safe. But for instance, calcium chloride is designed to be effective at up to -40 degrees, “so in other words, if the temperature is any warmer than -40, calcium chloride will keep the body panels wet, and it has a strong salt content, so it continues to corrode your car,” he said.
Some municipalities have been leaning toward potassium chloride on their roads, but Westin says it’s not much easier on vehicles.
“In a nutshell, we strive and preach cleanliness often, and we try to make sure that prior to winter, the car is prepped and it has a good, healthy coat of wax on it to protect the paint,” he said.
There are undercoating and rustproofing products on the market and while it’s possible to apply them at home, Westin strongly suggests having a professional do it.
“There are kits available to do that, but it’s helpful to have the facility and the correct tools,” he said. “To have your car professionally washed and detailed could be around $100 most of the time, but the benefit you’ll have through that winter — the extra protection will help road debris come off with a simple rinse, compared to having to struggle with cleaning off the salt,” Westin added. “It’s an extra protective skin over your car.”
Putting a little extra effort into maintaining a vehicles body will help reduce corrosion, but putting a half hour into the headlights can increase visibility by up to 50 percent.
On Friday, one of Westin’s senior students Collin Patterson spent about a half hour sanding and polishing both headlights on a vehicle, changing the light they yielded from a dingy yellow to their original brightness.
Westin explained how a lot of the plastic headlight capsules will corrode or yellow in a few years, reducing night visibility horrendously — up to 50 percent in some cases.
“In the winter time, we’re actually running under the least light conditions … so we rely on our excellent visibility — our headlights, our wipers, our clean windows etcetera, to navigate through these treacherous months, and that’s where we need our top performance,” he said.
Whether it’s polishing headlights or having a good undercoating on a vehicle, Westin reiterated how important it is to invest in a car’s bodywork.
“Any car that is able to pass the Maine state inspection is worthy of some sort of protection.”
For additional information about the Caribou Regional Technology Center, including questions as to weather a personal vehicle repair could be fixed by the students, call 493-4270.
