Okay all you Oklahoma guys. I need some advise. I'm thinking of buying a early 90's pickup from down there basically to use it to re-body my low mileage but rusted out pickup up here. Its served me well dragging old cars everywhere, but the body is getting so rusty (not good when ones foot goes through the inside bed wheel well). Anyways, My question is this. I wonder how much road salt, if any is used down there? Will a early 90's pickup be solid usually? The truck I'm looking at was sold new in the Lawton Okla area and spent its life there until 2003 when it moved across the state to Broken Bow OK.
There is some used here. Since we only get a couple weeks of snow a year, it's pretty minimal. Compared to Michigan, we don't even know road salt it is.
I have lived in Oklahoma for over 60 years and I don't think, that in an average year, that the hiway department puts salt on the roads for more than 2-3 days per storm. We usually have only one or two winter storms a year. They usually only last a few days. We have had a few ice storms that lasted a week. The roads dry out fairly quickly. You would run into more salt driving in OKC or Tulsa. I traveled the entire state with my job for 30 years. Lawton is a drier climate than OKC. Broken Bow has more moisture than Lawton, but is also usually warmer in the winter. I can't vouch for that specific truck, but we just don't see the rust here that you encounter up north. Just my 2 cents.
I would say you are pretty safe getting a Okla. truck or car. Most of the rusty stuff you see is Chrysler products. ***************************************************************** Like I told the kid, "Your music's not too loud, its just like OKC, it sucks!"
It's unusual to have more than 2-3 applications a year, but they lay a lot of salt when they do. In general, cars seem to fare pretty well compared to those north of here.
I grew up in Ohio before I went to school in Tulsa in the early 80's.Up until the time I moved out there I never imagined that you loosen a brake bleeder or remove a brake line without twisting it off on anything over 5 years old...
you should have no problem here...maybe 1 or 2 snows per year and Lawton is down in the south part of the state as well....Go for it!
I live in Missouri, you can watch cars rust before you can finish a six pack. would marine anodes work or do they only work on things submerged?
I've lived in OK for nearly 30 years. Oklahoma only recently started using salt, or a salt/sand mix, say in the past 10-15 years. Salt is readily available from Kansas, so that is one reason they began using it. Before, it was pretty much sand-only, except in the northern counties of OK that border Kansas. As stated before, we generally get one of two storms per year (one this past week) where they get the salt trucks out; and then, they only do the Interstates, State highways, and designated snow routes in the metro areas. Most City streets barely see a plow or grader, much less a salt/sand truck! So you can feel pretty confident that if you find a car or truck that has lived its life in OKlahoma, you can figure rust is going to be mimimal, if any. Very little snow falls in Lawton, and nearly none falls in Broken Bow. What we call "rusty" here is pristine metal up North. The only seriously rusty cars we see here, are the cars that are brought in from the North on trailers as parts donors! I had a '59 Metropolitan that I bought in 2002, that was an OK car its entire life, as documented by previous registrations. The only rust repair that car required was a fix in both rockers. That was it. And the Mets were never famous for being rust-free!
The Jalopy Journal
