Ford Explorer Wrecked Interior Detail

[TimboCLE]

Hey all,

My neighbor has seen me detailing for some time now and asked if I would detail his winter SUV (Northeast Ohio). I told him I would come on over and take a look the other day and agreed to do the job after explaining my services and discussing both his and my expectations. He mentioned that the interior has never been thoroughly cleaned since he purchased it 7 years ago. I wanted to give him the *friend discount* but knew after the time I would invest, it just wouldn't be worth it for me if I did. SO he happily said he would love me to do it and I agreed to take care of it today.

Like I said, this was just to be an interior detail. The floors were horrendous. I wouldn't have agreed to do this had I not had an extractor in my arsenal. He expressed that he would like to have his leather seats all cleaned and conditioned as well.

I should have taken more time with the before photos but was trying to beat the expected rain so I snapped just a few. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the condition of the seats before hand, take my word for it that they were damn near black.

For the floors I hit them with 50/50 H20 & Vinegar for the crusted on salt and then thoroughly covered the floors with Folex and allowed it to sit for 20 minutes while I worked on the dash and doors. After the vinegar broke the salt down, I took a carpet brush and agitated the floor doing only 1 area at a time. I then extracted the area and repeated with Folex again. The other floor panels cleaned up very well but the drivers side flooring was stained underneath the layer of dirt and grime, so it left a yellow/orange stain after cleaning. The owner was made aware of this during our talk about expectations.

For the seats, I tested a spot with Meguairs Super De-Greaser diluted to 4:1 and agitated with a medium bristle brush. This proved to be very effective and I did this on all seats to get the main layer of grime off. After the main stuff was removed, I switched to Meguiars Gold Class Leather Cleaner and finished the job off with Meguiars Gold Class Leather Conditioner. The seats turned out very well considering how incredibly filthy they were.

My neighbor was incredibly surprised when he came out and saw the final product which made me feel great about the work I had put in. Here are the photos I snapped along the way. Thanks for taking a look!

[GSKR]

Friggin awesome.

[Paul A.]

Nice job, Timbo!

[bill walsh]

wow that was trashed

[FOCUS.FREAK]

Outcome was amazing. What extractor did you use? And again great work!


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[TimboCLE]

Outcome was amazing. What extractor did you use? And again great work!


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Thanks everyone. I have a Sandia 3 Gallon Indy Heated Automotive Extractor. I live the thing, it's small enough to throw in the car and lug around and quite powerful.

[Joe@NextLevelDetail]

You did a awesome job

[Cabrio]

Great job! You also did a nice job discussing expectations up front .

[aaffoo1983]

Great job here. Newbie question pls forgive me. What is Folex?


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[TimboCLE]

It's a fantastic carpet stain remover. It has little to no smell and is safe on just about anything, however it does not really suds up. Pick up a gallon at Home Depot for around $16.