I'm looking at moving to Shreveport, LA next year and am wondering what effect, if any, the higher humidity will have on my '85 pickup rusting any more than it is. So far it's life has been spent in Idaho, New Mexico, and West Texas (high heat but very little humidity). It's got some bed rust and surface rust on the underside but it is otherwise very solid. I'm not sure I'll have a garage in Shreveport and am wondering if this thing is going to start disintegrating once it experiences a few Ozark summers. Thanks!

 

Rust generally requires the combination of moisture and some kind of chemical activity enhancer (salt, etc.). In Idaho (as in Colorado) you probably had your share of road salt, but not much moisture, so rust wasn't much of a problem. In Louisiana, you'll have plenty of moisture, but little salt (unless right along the coast), so again I wouldn't expect much of a rust problem. (Shreveport is well away from the coast.)

I had an uncle who lived near Portland, Oregon, and generally kept his vehicles for 20+ years. Never a rust problem, even though they get 80 inches of rain/year there.

Where rust is really a problem is the upper midwest, and/or northeast, where the humidty is high and they use lots of road chemicals in the winter.

 

Thanks for the input, that makes me feel a little better! I think I would have rather sold her than see her succumb to car cancer.

 

I had that fear 20 years ago when I moved from the CA bay area to Germany.
Still looking "ok".

 

i live in baton rouge. been here about 1.5 years now. keep it under some sort of covered car port and if possible on tope of something concrete to stop the moisture from coming up from the ground. theres not really any salt here. youll be fine.

 

You might want to get underneath it with your hose and clean it up well. You could have some remnants of Idaho salt (is that why the French Fries are so good?), which you don't want to "activate" with Louisiana moisture.