[basjoos]

Here in SC, they just sand the roads when needed, but I do a lot of driving in the western NC mountains, where they use road salt and brine, so I get to experience one of the joys of winter driving, namely the salt spray kicked up by other vehicles, especially semis. One of the fringe benefits of driving this low Cd vehicle is that it doesn't get coated with dried road salt when driving at speeds over 25mph on salt and brine covered roads. Before I aero modded it, the front bumper/grill, windshield, sides, and rear window of my car used to get coated with dried salt to the point of being a safety hazard when I couldn't see out the rear window and the side windows were speckled to where I couldn't get a good view of the salt spattered external rear view mirrors. Then the fun really began when the windshield got coated with salt spray from a passing semi, especially when the windshield washer was frozen, and the wipers made it even worse by smearing the mess all across the windshield. But even when the washers weren't frozen, the water/antifreeze mix they sprayed out would often partially freeze on the windshield and have to subliminate away over a few miles. I'm glad to have left all that behind via my aero mods and consider this to be a major safety feature of my modified car when winter driving and a feature that I wish I could find in a OEM car.

Looking at my aero mods, the only things that are different ahead of the windshield that would modify the airflow are the nosepiece and the windshield wiper air deflector. The rounded nose parts the air and starts it moving smoothly up over the hood without the added turbulence that the flat OEM bumper/grill created in the oncoming airflow. Then the wiper air deflector introduces a little lift at the base of the windshield to help the airflow transition smoothly through the hood/windshield angle change while keeping any small water droplets/mist inthe airflow from impacting on the windshield.

The sides are kept salt free by the wheel well covers that contain the salt spray that you see boiling out of the wheel wells of all "normal" cars. And the rear window is kept clean by the boattail that eliminates the recirculation eddy that coats the rear glass of all "bobtailed" cars. The only parts of my car that collect dried salt are inside the wheel wells, the area just around them on the car's underside, and then a small amount of depositing on the underside of the boattail. My car also kicks up a tiny fraction of the salt spray that a "normal" car does, helping to make everybody else's commute just a little bit safer.