What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

I hit the carwash with underbody sprayers after every snowfall is cleared from the roads. My local carwash offers an unlimited monthly pass, so it is very economical to always have a clean vehicle.

 

Why do you think I've had the stickers for months and they still aren't on the truck

 

I just rubbed a spot off with a used McDonald napkin...

 

I'll tell you what sucked though... A couple weeks back we had lots of snow with temps in the teens (F) down to 0 so the roads were salted very heavily. Then temps shot up and we got 3 days of rain. All of that rain mixed with the salt on the road and essentialy soaked my frame in brine. I made nearly daily carwash visits.

 

I wish our temps would shoot up. My driveway is a 1in sheet of ice and the rest of my house is surrounded by 2 feet of snow. Its been 6 degrees all day. Luckily the only road around here that's salted is the highway.

 

true

meh

 

Normally I can avoid salt by staying off the Interstate, but the temps this year brought the salt closer to home.

Temperatures have been both strangely high and low this year within the same week.

The rain did wonders for clearing the ice and snow.

 

Towns around me go overboard with the brine and salt, especially the brine. Even if the forecast is less than an inch, they will brine the majority of roads around town. I wouldn't mind if it were limited to major roads, big hills, or more serious weather, but how panicky they get is ridiculous.

 

Wyo?

 

We don't get brine here, we get Glycol which is nice at least. We do get rock salt on the highway though.

 

The sticker

 

While it certainly isn't a guarantee, there is a chance that if you apply stickers when it's cold that the adhesive might not work as well as it should and it will be easier for it to come off either by something or just quicker by time. The colder it is, the worse. I'd recommend no colder than 50F as a safe minimum.

They use rock salt and brine here. Both suck, but I can accept the rock salt. That's largely calcium chlorine, which is bad but not terrible for frames. It's the damned magnesium chloride in brine, as well as the liquid nature of it, that's bad news. And being so liberal with it does not help.

 

Roads are salted everyday for the most part here (in certain areas). Freezing fog rolls off the bogs in the mornings and freezes on roads.

 

Ben it says Wyo! Read boy read! Are you putting the sticker from Marc on?

 

Well that at least seems justified. Still shit, but at least it's not a weak dusting of snow that gets a full treatment. Ice is more understandable.

 

Gona have to explain to me too. What "wyo" stands for

 

Wyoming

 

I see.

 

Yeah, cold weather in general is not good for stickers. But if the initial application is good, it will hold better later on. Not quite for the same reasons, but it's like asphalt. If roads are paved in the cold weather, they will typically get ruined quicker and easier than roads paved in warm weather.

Temperature matters, but so does surface prep. If the surface is dirty or wet, that's no good for sticker application. Best to get it dry, clean with alcohol (91% is best), then wipe with a microfiber.

But the design of the sticker can work against longevity. The shape/types of cuts, method & materials used, etc...

With that said, this inappropriately warm weather the other day allowed me to put a handful of stickers on the truck. Thought I was gonna be waiting until Spring. So that was nice.

 

Allowed me to put my tw sticker on.