Do cars from coastal states get rusty?

[Ukraine Train]

I travel to Florida for work occasionally and am thinking about picking up a new-to-me car there one of these days to bring back home to Cleveland. I'm wondering, though, if the salt in the air makes them rust? Or is that just near the coast?

I bought my Jeep Liberty when it was about six years old and it was already getting some good rust spots!

[sanglant]

depends. some cars are treated to prevent it, you really need to know what cars your looking for to know.

[Ben]

I don't believe anywhere near what you'll get from road salt anywhere that they spread that stuff. I have an office right on the water and I've never had a rust issue. I keep my cars a long time, so I would see salt water related rust. That being said, I take care of my vehicles and wax them at least four times a year specifically because I do park at the ocean most days. I see some maybe 8-10 year old vehicles of some people that liveaboard at our harbor that apparently never wash or wax their cars and that have a good coat of rust.

Once you're even 1/4 mile away from the ocean though, you won't see any salt water deposits on your paint.

[Tuco]

Florida's coastal climate is very humid, and cars from Florida (and other humid areas) can have more rust than cars from the drier, western coastal and interior states.

As Ben stated, it's nowhere near as nasty as the cancer from New England /Great Lakes states, but "No Road Salt" doesn't automatically equate to "No Rust".

All cars have their rust hot spots, i.e. places where that certain model starts to rot first.  
Learn them and pay close attention.  Evaluate on a case by case basis.  

[Ben]

Good point about humidity. All my experience is in the West.

[MechAg94]

My truck is coming up on 8 years old and it has no rust that I know about and the paint is scratched in a few spots.  I rarely go very close to the coast here, but it is always very humid.  I've gotten it waxed a few times, but mostly just the deluxe wash at the big Bucee's nearby. 

I guess it depends on just how old of a vehicle you are talking about.  I've seen plenty that were older than mine that look okay.  No rust, they just look faded and older.

[Ukraine Train]

I'm looking at Cherokees in the 2000 year range. I had an '01 before from MI that I sold about a year ago and it was starting to go. No specific trouble spots in particular, just all around. My dad has an '01 Chrysler minivan that came from Florida that I replaced a couple rusty steel heater lines on last week but the rest of it was spotless underneath. I just always dread doing any kind of maintenance or repairs on rusty cars.