Yeah, it's that new crap they're spraying on our roads Frank. Might as well just use a metal dissolving agent and get it over with.
I assume you are talking about road salt.
In some places that require an annual (or even more frequent) "safety" inspection, they will flunk a vehicle if there is any visible sign of body rot, as if a small rust hole in a fender or door panel could possibly pose any kind of safety hazard.
Then they dump salt on the roads to make the vehicle rust out, so that when it will no longer pass inspection you have to buy a new one. That helps keep the economy going.
Someone (Timtron, IIRC) once told me that he brushed fresh roofing tar over the rusty spots in one of his cars to stop up the cancerous holes, just before inspection time. He said it really looked like crap, but successfully got him through the inspection.
I had rotten spots in the wooden window sills of one of my buildings, and dug out the rotted wood and filled some of the holes with roofing tar about 20 years ago, and the repair is still perfectly sound. On others I filled the rotten wood with wood filler sold for the purpose, and after about 5 years, cracks appeared around the hardened filler and the wood had continued to rot. After the tar had weathered long enough for the sheen to go away, I painted it, and the tar held paint better than the unrotted part of the wood.
I'm glad we don't have to deal with that vehicle inspection ripoff crap in this state. DMV officials have been pushing for it for decades, but it always gets voted down.
