We get more months out of the year to enjoy top-down driving. BUT this month it's a double edged sword. Temps are warm enough, but along with the warmer weather we also get the scourge of mega-pollen! My black F-Type looks like a bumble bee for most of April. UGH!!!!


The car was just washed and yet it's covered in pollen after only 30 min.

 

 

Tell me about it my allergies have been killing me

Wouldn’t trade living in a warm state for anything though. Can’t imagine having to put a car away for the winter or risk dealing with all the road salt and ice/snow

The 2 weeks a year we might get snow in TX is more than enough for me. I usually keep the nice cars at home until the first rain to help clean up the roads a bit

 

I live in Southern California but up in the mountains at 6000 ft. We get snow a half dozen times a year but it melts quickly and I have an AWD SUV to get around in when I don't want my Jag to leave the garage.
Most of the winter, daytime temps are in the 50's to low 60's so that doesn't preclude me from driving my F Type when it is sunny.

However, it is very dusty here. Last year the county fixed all the pot holes and cracks on the roads that lead off of the State highway to the residential areas but instead of reapplying asphalt they did something called a chip coat where they spread pea gravel on the surface and then spray a thin layer of asphalt and drive a bulldozer over that to compress the surface. Driving over it sounds like being inside of a popcorn popper as the gravel is still quite loose and you can see clouds of dust trailing behind your car in the rearview mirror. I washed my car Saturday, drove to town to get my mail and when I got home my car was covered with dust. So nice of the County to choose the cheap way to fix the roads for all of the residents of my community.

 

Having lived both North and South, I'll take the pollen you have to wash off the top of the car vs the salt that's underneath.

I was in Philly last weekend for the NCAA when my son took his GT3 off the lift for the summer. But, he still has to fight the residual potholes.

 

I drive mine all year here in the Pacific Northwest - you just have to pick your spots.
It helps to have two sets of wheels though. The summer ones don't do well when the temps get below about 45 degrees, or when the ruts in the highway fill with water.

 

In Pennsylvania they do another version of a chip coat to the roads. They spray tar all over the road and then spread the pea gravel in the tar. That also leads to lots of loose gravel on the road and a rough surface. I avoid driving on it for a few weeks until traffic moves all the loose gravel out of the travel lanes.

 

CPQ100 was accurate but it's even worse than he wrote. Summers are the time to repair the roads, but our PA municipal governments seems to never have enough money to properly profile the roads and put another layer of asphalt down, so they tar and chip the roads, as was stated. If you have a car with tires wider than the wheel wells (as stock F types, Vipers and Corvettes....I've owned 2 each of all three, I am an authority!), that dust and dirt is nothing. Those chipped roads destroy your paint jobs, absolutely ruins them...so you are left to attempt circumventing those freshly done roads or get your car destroyed or leave it parked. Then in the winter, our municipalities remove the snow and/or ice and spread a mixture of salt and ground up slag (slag is a byproduct of mined coal. often referred to as "rejects", almost as hard as granite) and spread that on the municipal roads. That slag stays on the roads until many. many rain storms move it to the berm of the road, like May....or again, you are given the 3 options listed.
It's tough to own any car that you not only enjoy driving, but really enjoy just looking at, in PA....if you do, your time on the road is limited.
Sorry, I have no tears left for you folks in the warmer climates!

 

Slag is a biproduct of the steel making process. It is nasty, probably harder than limestone gravel.

 

Oh, so there is at least one reason to be thankful I live in Illinois. Much appreciated.

 

Meh, we have pollen here in the north too; it just comes a month or two later.