First Salt Bath!

[JustPassinThru]

Should I make the trip in the Yaris?

I have a 2012. It has only seen salt once, one 200-mile leg coming up from Florida just before New Year's. I washed it - weather was unseasonably warm the day I arrived; and parked it.

Other than that, it's never seen a salt rinse. Not last winter and not this winter. I have a beater, a 1996 Tercel, for snow duty.

Now...I've just been called in for a VERY desirable job interview. It's 1200 miles away; it's ten days from now and I'm out of work. So time is not a factor.

I can fly...expensive and I hate it. I can TRY to take the Tercel - it's got issues, as all old beaters do, but it's basically sound, I think.

Or I can take the Yaris, in comfort, with a working radio (the Tercel's is busted).

Thingofit is...the Yaris is, I'd decided, my last car. Times have changed and I won't be able to afford another new, nice car. I bought this one for a good price with cash...and THAT, as they say, is THAT.

I don't know I'll get the job, so however I travel it's speculation. And while it's good-paying there's no guarantee that ANY of us can afford luxuries in the future.

So...I'm wondering: HOW much harm does a relatively short immersion to road salt spray - and also that pea-stone sand they use out West - do to a car? Is it cumulative? Or is it that once it's exposed, the corrosion starts ramping up?

Sort of like...being a virgin. This Yaris had heavy salt-foreplay but basically it's virgin. After 2400-plus miles in slop, that won't be true.

Thoughts? I can leave early with the beater. It might even be possible to rent a car reasonably cheap.