question 4 guys up north

[bigcountry]

ok down here we had our first and only snow of the year last week and the roads iced over and of course they salted them and now i have this weird stuff under my truck and the more i drove on the salted roads the more of it showed up under my truck and i drove different roads everytime i went out driving so my question is what is this stuff that i washed out from under my truck today?

 

[Hopman]

Looks like a dead mutated fish!

 

[Earl43P]

Ask your road department what they are using.

There's all kinds of mixtures, but sand is a given.

 

[strvger]

most use a sand and salt compound mix. up here they are even using a new automatic dispensing system with a liquid urea mixture on bridges.
bottom line is it all needs to washed off just as you did. you might want to undercoat everything under there with some of the spray cans of the stuff that you can get just about anywhere. winter isn't over just yet!!

 

[bigcountry]

down here winter is over hahahaha.

 

[powerranger262]

That's something different that I have never seen before. Like Earl43p said, check with your road dept. and post back what it is. They have been experimenting with different stuff, but mostly different mixes of sand/salt. They did talk about using something from beets a while ago, but obviously people who own white vehicles didn't approve.

 

[bigcountry]

to describe what the texture is it was very hard like a rock kinda sandy to the touch and when it got wet it was like a gel and even more sandy and gritty and thats what it looks like wet

 

[Downey]

where are you?

 

[kamps989]

Yup like everyone said mixtures very from city to city and state to state. Some bridges even have automatic systems that spray liquid de-icer on the road. Its all bad for your truck, I washed my truck today and from the wash back its already coated again because they use so much here.

 

[94twodoor]

He is probably in VA. I googled it and thats what it came up with...

 

[07rangerfx4lv2]

if it washes off then its not a problem

 

[Original_Ranger84]

Probably some sort of Calcium something or other mix liquid. In Alaska they spray the stuff and soak the sand with it. Butapparently we aren't supposed to touch it cause it will burn your hands.

 

[Fast Fords]

looks like a type of silica gel/salt maybe?? up here in canada they use a strict sand/salt mix..REAL bad for any metal; even paint. Keep your truck clean as ya can.

 

[Nhaz]

get your truck oil sprayed! I cannot stress how much a good thick coat of oil on the underside of the truck keeps it living longer with less maintenance.

Also I have never seen that stuff before we only use salt and sand up here. and on the extremely cold days they may use calcium carbonate on the bridges. which will burn your hands. and eat holes in the thin metal bodies of vehicles. they don't use it much its got to be Bad before they use it. and our idea of bad is far worse then what the UK got => 20cm thats less then a foot! Heck thats just fun weather.

Salt stops melting ice effectively below minus 20C which is where the sand mix comes in.

 

[bigcountry]

He is probably in VA. I googled it and thats what it came up with...

nope alabama