Does anyone know if any or all of the following states use salt on the roads in the winter: Idaho, Utah, or Washington?
Washington does not do much salt in the lower elevations. I don’t know about the mountains, but I would guess not much.
With a modern car, salt is not the problem it once was. It is not desirable, but modern cars are far more rust resistant.
I’m not 100% sure, but in general the western states are a lot less salt-happy than the eastern ones. Usually this is because they don’t get the huge amounts of snow they do in the northeast, and so melting the snow (such as with salt) is less of a priority-- usually the snowplows can handle it. Of course another issue is that when it gets really cold, salt doesn’t work any more, and since most of the snow in the west falls in the high mountains, salt isn’t necessarilly reliable.
I do know that a few years ago Washington was experimenting with using salt in a few spots on I-90 west of Spokane-- I’m not sure if they decided to keep using it or to expand it at all. I also wouldn’t be terribly suprised if some salt got used in the more urban areas of Idaho and Utah.
I live near Buffalo NY all of our cars go to the boneyard because of rust. Once a car gets rusty enough, no major repaid is worth it. 12 years seems to be about the limit if a car is driven 5 days a week all year.The amount of salt poured on our roads is staggering. All our main roads are salted and plowed and salted until they get them down to bare pavement.