My 2008 SEL Ford Fusion

Chris G

New member
I've been reading here for a while now trying to learn the ropes of auto detailing for a few weeks now, and was finally able to complete the registration.



I bought my first 'nice new' car last week, which was a used 2008 SEL Fusion. I was hoping I'd be able to open a thread for my car so I could ask new questions as they arise.



I'm not new to the forum scene and I know full well how the search option works, however there are questions I still have even after searching for hours, I aim to only ask one question at a time until the issue is solved. (If this is out of line, feel free to correct me in anyway, I hope to become a long time involved member, and grow my experience in detailing knowledge.)



First question is, this car is fully loaded, including leather trimmed interior and leather seats. The former owner took terrible care (imo, but I take extensive care of everything) of the car but it's not trashed, just needs some TLC. It appears that the former owner had children, but the issue is there appears to be milk on the leather trimming on the door and seats. After a good cleaning of the leather which I used Meguiar's Gold Class Rich Leather Cleaner/Condition which is solvent free (read that was a big deal with coated auto leather). However, upon applying with a mf the milk doesn't come off the top of the leather, I scrubbed pretty hard with out realizing it'd mess it up on a spot on the door panel and it removed the milk but made the leather in that spot really smooth instead of the normal porous feeling. Any suggestions?



(really sorry for the extent of this post, I had a lot to spit out.)



Chris
 
Try mixing Woolite with water (20:1 dilution is strong enough) in a spray bottle. Spray the area liberally, the use a nylon bristle brush to scrub as needed, then wipe dry. Then condition the leather with Gold Class.
 
I really want to apologize if this is over the top redundant posting on my behalf, but I am an absolute newbie to cleaning a car (every other car I've ever own I didn't honestly care about upkeep because they were beater cars) also, I sadly lack any knowledge in cleaning solutions =/.



So, I went down to the local convenience store and found a few different types of Woolite in spray bottle form (and only in spray bottles, no big bottles or anything), the basic one (not a pet remover or anything) looked like this:



imag0446x.jpg




Wasn't sure if this one was the correct one or not since it said something about carpet stain fighters, so I figured I'd ask before tanking the leather.
 
K that means I need to keep shopping around. I wanted to buy a separate spray bottle anyways so I could do the dilution, however as I've only used Tide for Laundry and never shopped around, I didn't know what Woolite was before your post (sad I know haha). I'll shop around and try this method and post back the results.



On a side note, I've stated it before, I'm excessively ignorant in Car cleaning/maintaining, and I've been searching around trying to find a guide or example of a good external detailing method, I can find one that explains different washing methods, different waxing methods, etc, I've read a lot about stuff like ONR and different kinds of wash, and read about people polishing, waxing, glazing, etc... Is there a term I should use when searching the forums to find such a 'Pre-Wash down to LSP' guide? I don't know the proper method of start to finish to rejuvenate a poorly maintained exterior, heck I don't even know what polishing technically is.. All I know is that the Fusion has swirls and scratches in the body sections (most are scuffs - light scratching) and some have paint removed (very tiny but still existing) and I really want to try to return the exterior to brand new but don't know the proper procedure.
 
Where are you from? Maybe there is a member near you that can help you out.



Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk
 
I live in Milan, Michigan and would love to get to know someone in the area, I have newbie questions and concerns and hate clustering up the forum with them but I quite frankly don't trust the hourly employees down at the local auto shops as authoritative informants.
 
Thanks Scott, That thread was actually pretty helpful and for some reason I never ran across that post while searching.



Side question again, My fiancee decided to buy me a 'premium interior detail' + Clay bar, wash and wax custom package as a gift for a place near us in Ann Arbor called Attention2Detail so the Fusion could be completely cleaned out. I scheduled an appointment for the 7th of June, but upon making the appointment (since she bought it as a surprise) I asked them which products they carry/us and they apparently only use a product called Auto Magic, and I've yet to run across that brand name from browsing the forum. Their website is just their name.com and it lists their products I guess, but I worry about the products since I've yet to see them on here (Maybe I've missed them) should I worry or just let the process go through on the 7th? I plan on maintaining the detailing myself there on out. Any information is great, thanks everyone.
 
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