Wear on a car related to where you live?

Do you think cars that experience "snow" are less likely to last? It seems more things go wrong on cars up north. I live in Miami,the only thing here is the heat.Wear on a car related to where you live?
Snow in and of itself is not hard on a car. There are two problems related to snow that are hard on a car, though.



Cold:

Starting an engine when it is cold (like really cold...like below freezing is where it starts, and below about -10F it gets really bad) increases wear on the engine parts due to poor lubrication from cold oil.

The wide temperature variations a car experiences, as low as -70F or so being about the lower limit for running even most of the toughest cars, or -50 without any kind of engine heater, to up to almost the same temperatures they run at in Miami once the engine gets warmed up, are EXTREMELY hard on every seal in the engine. Oil pan gaskets and valve cover gaskets take it worst. Every car in Alaska leaks oil after 5 winters.



Salt: Road salt causes cars driven during winter to rust. Many places that get a lot of snow use salt to melt the snow from the roads. This is because of two things:

1. People in those states are stupid and don't know there are better ways to handle it

and 2. There is actually a salt lobby that seeks to keep states using as much salt as possible. THEY ARE THE ENEMY AND THEY MUST BE DESTROYED ALONG WITH THEIR FAMILIES, FRIENDS AND EVERYONE AND EVERY THING THAT THEY LOVE OR EVER HAVE LOVED.

To my knowledge, only two snowy states in the US do not use salt to any large extent: Alaska, and Colorado. I attribute Colorado to their education level. I attribute Alaska to the fact that salt doesn't do crap to snow at -40. Worse yet, if you melt snow into slush, then have it freeze, you end up with a rough icy surface that is difficult to drive on and virtually impossible to stop safely on. So cars don't rust much in Alaska (away from the ocean, anyway). I haven't confirmed the Colorado thing firsthand (never been)



In Alaska, they use sand and gravel to provide traction. This, combined with a lot of roads paved only with gravel, means that there are rock chips in the paint and windshields on most Alaskan cars. In South Korea, they use dirt. It makes for muddy roads and dirty cars, but it works and doesn't actually hurt anything. I don't know what they do in Colorado, but I'm guessing it's similar.



edit: "rust belt" comes from all the closed down, abandoned manufacturing in the northeast. It is just coincidence that it also happens to be where cars rust worst (apart from some seaside communities)Wear on a car related to where you live?
I lived in Northern Ohio all my life and I found that vehicles up there do not tend to last as long as cars from the South. With snow in the winters the city uses Salt on the roads, usually in excessive amounts. This causes major rust problems to the undercarriage and lower body of a vehicle. In the south, no snow means no salt on the roads. There is salt in the air from the ocean but that is nothing compared to salt laid by salt trucks. The sun will damage paint, but that is usually only cosmetic. I recently moved to Northern Florida and I see cars that are 20 years old and look brand new. The key is to take care of your vehicle. Wash and wax it on a regular basis. This will help protect the paint from sun/salt, wherever you may live. Other than cosmetically the salt on the roads in the North will wear on engine components also. Salt tears up the wiring and other electrical parts on a vehicle. You also have to be careful about the heat level in your vehicle. windows have been known to "blow out" of cars that are parked in the sun for prolonged periods of time.Wear on a car related to where you live?
Are you kidding? They don't call it "the rust belt" for nothing. It's the road salt! Which, by the way, is used because the midwest gets different kinds of snow and ice conditions than Colorado does. Sand wouldn't work.



I got an eye-opener on that when I moved to California and worked on my cars there. Instead of soaking bolts with Kroil and then the bolt breaks off -- bolts just came undone no hassle! An inner fender rusts away and falls off a Michigan car - I go to the junkyard in California and get one that looks NEW except it's covered with dirt.



3 years ago I drove to Detroit in a junkheap California Datsun. The thing TURNED HEADS in Detroit. They asked if I garaged it. (no!) I talk to a Mercedes mechanic and mention how crazy popular the 300D's are for biodiesel -- and he says (wait for it) "Wow, I remember those! Haven't seen one in years."



Yes, cars not in the snowbelt last MUCH longer.



In Miami, however, you have salt air. In California, cars that spend their lives parked within a mile of the beach tend to rust out.Wear on a car related to where you live?
cars in the north and east rust out from the salt they use on the roads when it snows.