BMW X5 + Town & Country: 2 white haulers get interior resurrections

[Marc@AutoLavish]

This client has 3 great kids, but kids + snow = dirty interiors. The goal was to really get the interiors cleaned and protected, and worry about the exteriors in spring.


First, the Town and Country: 2009, fully optioned, beautiful cream leather interior.

Rubber floor mats are a must in Michigan / Northern winters. These are the factory ones with great fit and obviously do a good job:

Interior panels had kick marks:

Door jambs needed to be cleaned, still not bad as the vehicle is fairly new:

Leather shows some soiling and color transfer, especially the suede uppers:

Door panels get beat in multi-function vehicles:

Doggy marks?

The rear of the seats were pretty bad from kicks with dirty boots:

 

[Marc@AutoLavish]

Other than that, the interior was in pretty decent shape:

We started by cleaning everything with APC 10:1, like the headliner (which was as bad as the rest of the interior!)

Almost done:

Done! Time for a rest

All the darker areas are still wet from cleaning. But notice how much "Spot" cleaning was required:

After vacuuming as much as possible, we got the APC and brushes to clean out the MANY crevices in this van.

Looking much better already:

Then, we vacuumed again, and again. APC 10:1 was used lightly. All interior plastic was cleaned with APC and followed by steam to rinse out as much APC as possible. We would dress up all plastic with Einzett Cockpit Premium to help protect from UV and, hopefully, markings from dirty boots. In these pictures we still needed to finish up the front seats. They had been treated with Leatherique Penetrating Oil after a vacuum and Woolite wipedown:

Our special vacuum attachments to really get in there:

Second row seats done (Dark areas on lower parts shows slightly damp carpet after extraction):

Third row seats done:

For the fronts, after the Leatherique treatment was done, we used Leather Masters Foam Cleaner. Especially for lighter color suedes, you want to make sure to use as little product as possible of a very good cleaner, or you could get blotches. Once applied and brushes, a microfiber was used to wipe the surfaces carefully:

Once the interior was done, we focused on cleaning up the exterior, and getting all salt off the vehicle. The request was just a quick wash. Starting with the wheels and tires, Chemical Guys Sticky Gel at 3:1 + EZ Detail brush:

Notice runoff from rinsing the wheels:

 

[Marc@AutoLavish]

Moar betta:

Jacob scrubbing the floormats...

...as I foamed the exterior with the Foam Gun (for non-pressurized hoses) using Dodo juice Born To Be Mild Shampoo:

"This ain't no foam! I need some DP Extreme Foam Shampoo!"

Hot water in the heated garage, WIN!

Collection of Afters:

Exterior was wiped with Megs Spray Wax to add some protection (and yes, teaser for another write-up in the background).

Finishing touches: Optimum Tire Shine, Meg's Trim Detailer, Megs All Season Dressing for wheel wells:

Next up was the X5:

 

[Marc@AutoLavish]

Overall, the paint was in excellent condition, and just needed some decontamination. The vehicle had severe rust specks from brake dust and rail dust, as expected to show easily on a white vehicle. A spring detail will involve removing them through a FK decontamination kit and clay.

Exhaust tips were bad:

Door jambs needed a light cleaning:

The important part was the interior:

Rear cargo area was pretty clean:

We started here with some cleaners and a brush, first the jambs, then the plastics. I got busy with the vacuum in the main cabin area.

..than rinsed and wiped it off, dry:

Special attention was given to the seals. We planned to condition the seals with Einzett Gummi Fledge, so they would have to be spotless to begin.

 

[Marc@AutoLavish]

The remaining yellow stuff oozing out of the lower drain hole in the door are a corrosive protection barrier applied to the innards of the doors at the factory. If we had used a stronger solvent, it would have came off and cleaned up more. But that would also involve more rinsing and a followup cleaner and another rinse. time is of the essence. We will get these and seal up the jambs the next time:

I LOVE clean, sparkling, white door jambs!

For the plastics, being in much better shape than the Town and Country, we opted to save some time and go straight to the Einzett Cockpit Premium. But for the carpets, we would have to do a mild extraction. The LGM was frozen or broke today, so it was old-school water-sprayer-and-shop-vac method after a spray and scrub with Amazing Roll Off, all occuring after the initial dry vacuuming.

Einzett GP on seals, 50/50:

D151 was used to hand polish the interior trim (including the garage door opener) and add a layer of protection:

Time to wash. This time we chose to try out the DP Extreme Foam shampoo in the foam gun to see if we could get more sudsing action. The Dodo juice used on the T&C was good, but we wanted longer lasting suds this time. High foaming shampoos may sacrifice some cleaning power or slickness, but certainly serve their purpose and are a great product for specific uses.

After washing and drying, we sprayed with Blackfire Spray Sealant. I think I prefer the Megs Spray Wax for white. It also feels better to the touch than the Blackfire. We imagine the Blackfire might last longer, but will evaluate at the next detail. Tires were dressed with Optimum Tire Shine, wells with Megs All Season Dressing, black plastic trim with CG Fade 2 Black. Of course the windshield and backlight (rear windshield) were treated with Aquapel. All other glass was sealed with Blackfire.

 

[Marc@AutoLavish]

Interior afters:

Exterior afters:

In Michigan, this is how our decent winter days look:

Thanks for reading!

 

[kammi10]

man i never get sick of looking at the pictures of your transformations you do on these cars

 

[86 Fox]

wow, always impressed with your work these are my favorite threads to look through

 

[Zarken]

No kidding. Talk about a living resumee for your company.

Is Autolavish a franchise yet? Need to look into opening one of those down here in kentucky. Or at the very least get some test market data down here to see if there is a market in the Lexington/Hamburg area. The work you guys do, is like miracles in alot of cases.

 

[Stinger1982]

jesus that mini van was disgusting. Looks new now!!


Do they wear new blue jeans (without washing them first) every day? How does a seat get that much blue transfer on it?!?!?!?!

 

[82iroc]

where did you get the knee pads i have some but they suck i work at fedex so my knees kill after kneeling on the metal trailer floors all day

 

[riche]

where are the pics of the maserati

 

[Marc@AutoLavish]

man i never get sick of looking at the pictures of your transformations you do on these cars

Thanks a lot We'll have more coming soon enough

wow, always impressed with your work these are my favorite threads to look through

Much appreciated!

No kidding. Talk about a living resumee for your company.
Is Autolavish a franchise yet? Need to look into opening one of those down here in kentucky. Or at the very least get some test market data down here to see if there is a market in the Lexington/Hamburg area. The work you guys do, is like miracles in alot of cases.

Not quite. We're still doing a lot to build our company. Later this month will mark the 1 year anniversary of our company, and being so niche market based makes it harder to get our name out because we're based off low volume work.

jesus that mini van was disgusting. Looks new now!!
Do they wear new blue jeans (without washing them first) every day? How does a seat get that much blue transfer on it?!?!?!?!

It was quite bad... but turned out pretty nice. Dark wash jeans can be an issue for anyone with a light colored interior. You'll see a similar issue with a Midnight Blue 2010 Porsche 911S we'll post up sooner or later in which we showed a little more step by step how it came out.

where did you get the knee pads i have some but they suck i work at fedex so my knees kill after kneeling on the metal trailer floors all day

Home Depot. I think they were one of the most expensive ones they sell, but the foam is very supportive, cut thick, and they've been very durable this far. I'd highly recommend them to anyone

where are the pics of the maserati

They don't exist. We haven't had a chance to work on it yet. That car will we receiving a little interior work as well as paint correction performed, and because the client uses it as a daily driver, we wanted to wait until it was warm out.

 

[chacho44]

A1 work, And those houses in the back round are huge.

 

[DSG SNAKE]

Great work first of all. Secondly, when using the apc on a headliner do you just get some on a rag and rub it in?

 

[Marc@AutoLavish]

A1 work, And those houses in the back round are huge.

Thank you for the kind words, and yes - the houses in the area are all massive. Real nice place to live to say the least.

Great work first of all. Secondly, when using the apc on a headliner do you just get some on a rag and rub it in?

Thank you. Headliners can be tricky and I wouldn't recommend working on the headliner of anything other than a modern car due to the differences in integrity of various glue manufacturers use. We lightly misted the APC on, then more or less dabbed it off. Too much of a scrubbing action can cause dirt and stains to go deeper into the fabric. The same problem occurs if you over-saturate a material with a liquid cleaning agent. Always better safe than sorry.

 

[FlyLike]

Damn, you guys do excellent work. Extremely impressive!