Salt is a serious problem. It can stay below freezing for weeks which makes rinsing anything off kind of hard. When it gets above freezing is when the snow and ice on the roads turn to slush and even more salt finds it way into the crevices.

I've learned that disc brakes are indeed one place that you need to get the salt out of if you can. The aluminum surfaces on the pistons of my brakes were even starting to corrode. The salt had worked it's way between the pads and the pistons and was causing some issues.