2020 Explorer Limited for the Mrs.

New car for the wife, neat story to go along with it.

My screen name gives away what I do for a living. I'm a corporate jet pilot. A couple weeks ago I took the owner of a major dealership group in the area to his summer home in Northern Michigan. He's a great guy, very friendly, and his family has given a ton to local charities over the years. In recent years his sons have taken day-to-day operations and he's enjoying the fruits of taking a small used car dealership started by his father in the 50s to over a dozen dealerships with almost every brand possible all over the metro area. Several of my family members work for this chain, and I've bought a couple vehicles over the years from them. We get to our destination, and his car comes out to the aircraft to offload bags. His first comment, "(several expletives) that thing is a mess!" It was brought up in the fall, and typically cars get cycle through every year but because of COVID it stayed at the airport through the winter and spring.

Wifey tells me last week that her 2014 explorer sport was starting to have some dumb electrical issues. We've liked it since we bought it but it was never quite the right vehicle for us. MPG was horrible because of the "sport" transmission programming and the ride wasn't super nice. We started looking and had a pretty good idea what we wanted. Due to said pandemic, we were having a tough time finding what we wanted with the exact options we needed. We drove a couple and almost pulled the trigger on one that was close, but the dealer wasn't willing to meet our price and we walked. By chance we looked at the dealership my customer owned, and saw one that checked all the boxes. Best part, because it had a couple thousand miles it was close to $10k below sticker. We give them a number, sales guy does his thing. We come to an agreement.

While filling out paperwork, I casually ask why it's so dirty. "Well, the dealership owner just had us bring a new ranger up to him to replace this car that he had up there last summer..." yeah, I bought it. Messy isn't an accurate description. It was parked under a tree, so there were a ton of twigs and crap in the wiper arms, and door jambs. Tons of dirt in the windows and seams. The detailers did a crappy job. Today, Mrs. Pilotpip and I took care of that. After washing, the paint wasn't terrible so it didn't need a ton of correction.

2 bucket wash
Iron-X
Wash again with blackfire clay mitt (why did I take so long to buy one of these?)
McKees 360 with LC thin pro orange pad on my PC
McKee's trim restorer on the plastic
Because Mrs was working on the trim, I decided to bust out some DP max wax I haven't used in years just to add a little extra
DP wheel coating
DP interior cleaner and protectant inside

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Enjoy, the Explorers are very nice cars. Great turn around as well.

14 Sport, eh?
I have a 14 Sport with around 90k miles on it. My only gripe right now is rust on the tailgate (from inside). Frustrating since the rest of the vehicle is in pretty good condition. My 'new to me' 2016 Golf R was supposed to replace it, but it might end up being my wife's daily driver (replace her aging '09 CX9).

I like the color on the 2020.

Was I the only one reading that and expecting him to say the dealer owner just gave him the car? Not sure why, I read that as if some sort of really nice gesture from the guy was about to come.

Nice outcome either way, looking good now.

Great post.

I drive for a Ford dealer, and have driven the new Explorers quite a bit.

The ride is incredible. Just great vehicles. And the Limited series is just icing on the cake. Every creature comfort to be had.

Congrats on the new ride. I hope the wife loves it. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Odrapnew

14 Sport, eh?
I have a 14 Sport with around 90k miles on it. My only gripe right now is rust on the tailgate (from inside). Frustrating since the rest of the vehicle is in pretty good condition. My 'new to me' 2016 Golf R was supposed to replace it, but it might end up being my wife's daily driver (replace her aging '09 CX9).

I like the color on the 2020.

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I suspect the sport was in water at some point before we owned it. We had a lot of little issues with it. Right rear caliper and hub bearing needed to be replaced after a year. It was starting to have some issues with the electronics. All way too early.

The 2020 is much more refined. Ride is nice and smooth because the suspension isn't lowered. Fuel mileage is much better. Around the town it's getting about 22 where the 14 was seeing about 15-16. I haven't done much highway driving yet to find out.

Beautiful ride all around. I love the color. You did a nice job.

Flake is popping! Nice work!