Try Not to Wash Your Old Car

Back in high school chemistry, you may have heard the teacher refer to water as the universal solvent.

Exactly so. It dissolved a mile of rock at the Grand Canyon, for instance.

And it will eventually dissolve your car, too.

Your old car, especially.

This bears some defining, though.

A fifteen-year-old car is an old car – but it’s not an old car for purposes of this discussion. No car built during the past 30 years or so is really an old car, nor will ever be one. Not in the sense that matter...