What is the best state or location for car longevity?

[mk3]

Living in the Madison/Milwaukee WI area for the last 10+ years has me quite frustrated with corrosion caused by road salt.
it got me thinking recently that it would really pay off to make a trip down south somewhere to purchase my next used car.... but where down south?
it will make a big difference whether the car is driven in rural or urban areas but of course it is much easier to find a car in urban areas due to the density of the population.
I'd venture a guess that the coasts are not the best due to salt in the oceans.
Arizona or similar may not be the best due to extreme heat which I assume is hard on the paint and interior plastics.
What do you all think?
PS (please no posts about how awesome the corrosion protection is. I know protection is good on body panels but only for so long and everything else corrodes as well... fuel and brake lines, calipers, radiator, condenser, screws, nuts, etc.)

 

[Joe_Meehan]

Hawaii.

 

[Honeydew]

You are right about coasts. I live a couple miles from the Atlantic and we have prevailing winds bringing sea air on shore most of the time. Cars that reside right on the local barrier island are known to have more tendency toward corrosion. We can go to the beach for an hour and have a coating of salt film all over the car.

On the other hand, anywhere if FL not right on the coast would be a good place to look for a car even with the sun and heat- lots of garage-kept vehicles. The driving conditions are easy on cars too.

 

[MrMopar]

California.

Huge car market means lots of used to choose from. Mild climates year-round along the coast. Interior has some desert with extreme high temperatures, so watch out for that if you're worried about extreme heat.

 

[dieseldorf]

SoCal.

 

[tditom]

AZ or NM

 

[lkchris]

AZ or NM

Yes, no rust but lots of UV.

This is where airplanes get mothballed, which says something.

 

[Diesel_Mikey]

I was in the bay area recently and was amazed how many 20-35 year old cars are still in daily-driver service. A colleague who lives in San Francisco tells me the lack of road salt and diffuse light (cuts down on UV damage) helps make this possible. I would think being next to the Pacific wouldn't help the corrosion situation any better than being next to the Atlantic, but I guess the difference vs. my home at the same latitude but on the other coast can be chalked up to the factors he mentioned.

 

[vwmikel]

Nevada/Arizona/California. Desert cars are perfectly fine if they've been garaged.

 

[Matthew_S]

In my opinion the PNW west of the mountains and far enough inland from the ocean to avoid salt air is the best place for cars. SoCal cars get the heat and the sun plus there are huge population centers within 30 miles of the ocean. Here in the Seattle area the overcast skies, temperate climate and constant washing of the underside of the car from 8+ months of clean fresh water on the roads make it ideal. The wasn't true 25+ years ago when cars had poor rust proofing but it is today.

 

[mk3]

Does the PNW / Seattle get snow and ice?

I guess I thought it did... but of course I do not know. I'd think that anywhere salt is applied to the roads is going to be very bad. My 01 Passat is garaged and it is our extra 3rd car.. we tried hard to drive it as little as possible in the winter but the subframe in front and rear suspension still got very rusty at the welds.

 

[boogieman]

Montana was good but they started to use Cal-CHl a bit on the highways in the last couple years, still mostly sand tho.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

I'd actually go for southern states in the middle of the country, OK, MO, maybe Texas. It seems I see more TDIs that are reasonably priced in these areas because they're not as well known, and they still don't get snow.

I can't stress enough how important it is to find a car that was garaged.

 

[TurbinePower]

Upstate SC isn't particularly hard on cars. We're far enough away from the coast we don't get salt spray, and we get a lot of sun but not as intense as desert regions. No salt on the roads in winter (we use sand, primarily). Lots of humidity to keep things from drying out as fast.

Things do rust here, but usually its worst on things that are neglected or unprotected at all. We pulled a twenty year old car out of a backyard, washed it off, and found only a little surface rust from limb falls. It'd been back there long enough for the tires to actually rot off...

 

[Joe_Meehan]

Does the PNW / Seattle get snow and ice? .

Yes, but not much compared to must parts of the US, especially the North half.

Getting up some of those hills can be a pain. Of course if you want to go over the mountain, you should expect a lot of snow.

 

[Matthew_S]

Does the PNW / Seattle get snow and ice?

Snow in the mountains but rarely in the lowlands. It probably falls below freezing 3 or 4 dozen times a year and usually only at night.

 

[mk3]

I found this map on wikipedia
It is a Köppen climate classification

it does seem to show that the climate in the PNW is unique.
From the responses so far, nobody is recommending Illinois, Wisconsin or Minnesota ; ) no surprise there.

 

[boutmuet]

There are no perfect conditions but prices are usually higher for warm weather cars such as Arizona and California. Though the hot weather isn't so great on rubber or plastic parts on the car. I live in California and the plastic trim in my Volvo started to crack from the heat because I don't have a garage I had to keep the car outside all the time in the hot sun.

 

[Powder Hound]

Hawaii.

ROFL! Quite the sense of humor you have! Cars in Hawaii typically last about half as long as they last anywhere else due to the windborne salt you can't get away from - the islands just aren't that big.

 

[MrMopar]

From the responses so far, nobody is recommending Illinois, Wisconsin or Minnesota ; ) no surprise there.

I would recommend cars from southern Illinois, because the climate in winter is pretty mild there most of the time in terms of snowfall. Once you come southeast of the Illinois river, any storm front sweeping through picks up a lot of moisture that gets dumped over the next couple counties as deep snowfall. Where I live (Bloomington) gets a good amount of snow in a few storms each year, but just 45 miles south of me my parents in Decatur almost never see any signifigant snowfall. The weather pattern of snowfall has diminished so much just in my lifetime that big snowfalls are becoming fewer with much more time between them. Even further south than Decatur, and the snow dissipates to the point that locals living that far south are the type to panic when a couple inches come along, and they DON'T know how to drive in snow.

 

[mk3]

I would recommend cars from southern Illinois,.....Even further south than Decatur, and the snow dissipates to the point that locals living that far south are the type to panic when a couple inches come along, and they DON'T know how to drive in snow.

That sounds good... I received a lot of good ideas here. Would you say based on the above that St. Louis would be a good metro area in which to purchase a used car.

this would be a different topic, but I suppose another consideration would be the laws in each state with regard to accident reporting, salvage car reporting etc. I recall when I looked for a car the last time I found a Golf that had been completely totalled and the seller told me so... however the CARFAX was clean because of some kind of logistics/paperwork trick.

 

[Joe_Meehan]

If you want the opposite, try a steel mill. I understand their on site pickup trucks have an average life of six months before some frame member rust through.

I bet the cars of those who live nearby don't do a lot better.

 

[MrMopar]

If you want the opposite, try a steel mill. I understand their on site pickup trucks have an average life of six months before some frame member rust through.

I bet the cars of those who live nearby don't do a lot better.

And there are so many operating steel mills left in the USA . . .

That sounds good... I received a lot of good ideas here. Would you say based on the above that St. Louis would be a good metro area in which to purchase a used car.

I honestly don't know about that. You'd have to ask a STL resident what the snowfall there is like; what the weather patterns are like. STL is right near the big Mississippi, so prevailing wind conditions could mean a lot of snow if a storm front picks up moisture from the river. In southern Illinois, I'd look for cars that are inland - away from the rivers. That's an area where snowfall is diminished a bit because there is less of a source of moisture for storms to pick up and then dump as snow. Less snow means less salt is used on the roads.

 

[Blackknight]

Arizona. The airplane graveyard is in Tucson for a reason.

 

[roadhard1960]

I live around Atlanta now for the last 26 years. Before I moved here I drove down here to pick up a 66 squareback. Solid car that was 13 years old. I see cars in the scrapyard I would have died for back when I lived in Ohio. Atlanta is far enough from the coast so no salt. Cars from NC are dicey if they are coast cars. Inland they should be the same as Atlanta cars.

 

[Matthew_S]

Arizona. The airplane graveyard is in Tucson for a reason.

It's also where almost every car co in the world does extreme whether testing. If you have to leave a car to sit for twenty years it's a great place, but if you are going to drive it for twenty years there are better places. Arizona is certainly far from the worst place and I would say that northern (Prescott, Flagstaff etc.) Arizona might be pretty close to ideal because it doesn't get so hot there.

 

[K5ING]

I've always thought that north and mid Texas were pretty good to cars. Virtually no snow or salt, and the air isn't so dry that it dries out everything. Texas cars will have lots of miles, but they will be mostly highway miles (stay away from cars from big cities however). As stated above, look for something that's been garage kept, or at least sheltered by a carport or something to protect it from the sun. Stay away from cars from Houston or any coastal areas, and also the northern panhandle. They get lots of extreme weather, including snow, up there.

 

[aja8888]

I've always thought that north and mid Texas were pretty good to cars. Virtually no snow or salt, and the air isn't so dry that it dries out everything. Texas cars will have lots of miles, but they will be mostly highway miles (stay away from cars from big cities however). As stated above, look for something that's been garage kept, or at least sheltered by a carport or something to protect it from the sun. Stay away from cars from Houston or any coastal areas, and also the northern panhandle. They get lots of extreme weather, including snow, up there.

Jeff, I'll post a few pics of my wife's '98 Lexus ES300 that has lived in Houston since new. It is in SHOWROOM condition, but has been garage-kept. North side of Houston where we live is not subject to coastal conditions (75 miles away).

Tony