Hi Guys, With your help and advice, I finally decided on the '03 XLT Sport. This group was a big help when I bought my '94 Eddie Bauer back in 1996 and you came through again this time. At the risk of starting a big argument, I need some advice about car wax for the "wonderful" Ford paint job. Please tell me they got it right this time instead of all the problems I had with my dark green metallic EB. Years ago I used to use the full-blown Blue Coral 2-part treatment which was nearly an all-day ordeal. Over the years, it looks like most of the waxes have started to load up with silicone to make application easier. Part of the "beading" of water with these waxes seems to come from the thin layer of silicone that is left behind INSTEAD of a good wax layer. I've heard that Meguiars and Mothers are supposed to be good but I'm open to suggestions. BTW, this '03 is Black Clearcoat which can present a few problems of its own. When I used to have a black Chevy Blazer, the Blue Coral had to be applied very carefully to avoid seeing odd swirls (on the final wax step, not the cleaner part). Lighter colors can hide this swirling but not black.
I also need some advice on removing the door panels on this Exploder. I was a little put off by the amount of plastic on the door trim....NOT as nice as my '94 EB, btw. I don't see any screws on these door panels, so I assume it is held on completely by pins, right? Any trick to removing these panels. Any tricks to removing the stereo on this model? Do you remove the trim or is it held in with the old "dual tool" like my '94 was?
Thanks again for all the help and I'm sure I'll have more questions in the weeks to come.
Dave
P.S. I still have a used JL Stealthbox subwoofer that came out of my '94 if anybody's interested in some seriously clean bass. This thing was $500 new!