“New” car for the wife

[TS656577]

Hey y’all. It’s been a minute or 20 since I’ve been on here. Glad to see this place is thriving. Looking for some guidance on stuff that’s out of my wheelhouse.

We got a 2013 explorer base for my wife since it has third row. Owned by an old guy in my family who sold it super cheap. 76k miles, under 10k all in so I can’t complain given the market right now. There are a few spots of rust on the edge of the hood that are under the paint then the arm rest is splitting.

Any ideas on how to tackle those? I don’t want to do any body work so I might just have to try to stop it from getting worse. The armrest, no idea.

Any help is appreciated. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’m beyond excited to do a first detail on this thing.

73868

73869

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[luckydawg]

sorry to tell you but that is going to have to be ground down and filled then re-sprayed

[PaulMys]

sorry to tell you but that is going to have to be ground down and filled then re-sprayed

Yes.

I work for a Ford dealer, and we refer to this as "Explorer Disease".

Aluminum hoods with steel latch components attached leads to corrosion from the two dissimilar metals being in contact over time.

Not sure what brainiac engineer at Ford signed off on this design, but I have personally seen dozens of Explorer hoods get replaced under warranty because of this.

[FUNX650]

From here…it looks like the door panel
just needs some re-stitching. Should be
as easy fix for an interior repair shop.

:idea:
Have the three body shops—that are
going to give you their estimates for
repairing the hood—also give you a
few recommendations for interior
repair shops in your locale.


Bob

[luckydawg]

I have seen quite a few myself- not as many as you probably. Its amazing that these folks keep using dissimilar metals-- heck I learned that in trade school when I was still a teenager

[DUBL0WS6]

I think they do dumb stuff intentionally for repair work down the road after the warranty expires.

[2black1s]

I agree with most everything said to this point... And I'll supplement that with my 2-cents.

For the hood, you must remove 100% of the existing corrosion prior to any repair (touch-up, repaint, etc.). That is your only chance of stopping any further corrosion. As for the dissimilar metals you need to use a seam sealer to keep any oxygen from reaching the dissimilar metal joint(s)... No oxygen = no corrosion.

For the armrest, I'm no upholstery guy but I would think that even I could repair that with a needle and thread.

[dgage]

For the door panel, you can also check eBay for used door panels. Another hobbyist car stereo and I’ve bought several door panels and everything turned out great. Just make sure they have detailed picture of the front and back and you can usually get those for under $200 each. At least that gives you a point of comparison for repair knowing that a repair might not match completely.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313&_nkw=2013+ford+explorer+door+panel&_sacat=0