#1,557 Elbow Grease.

Another car post. But you know we’re car people over here—I can’t NOT write about it since we finally found our dream car. After I finished my work this afternoon, I came home so we could wash and wax it. It’s totally amazing what you can do with these 3 (cheap) magic supplies:

1. Mr. Clean eraser
2. Color Magic wax
3. A sample can of custom mixed latex paint from Sherwin Williams

While the truck looked great before:

After you wax it with Color Magic, and clean the plastic trim (the fender flares around the tires and the bumpers) with a Mr. Clean eraser, it looks like the car has been in storage since 2005 and just saw the light of day for the first time ever. Ben’s brother Sam told us about the Magic Eraser. It’s crazy how well it works to remove that hazy grey oxidation from the black trim:

Afterward we put Armor All on all the plastic trim, but NOT the running boards. Best not to if you want to avoid an injury in which you slip off and break your neck. In the same way that moisturizing your face keeps it looking good, wax does the same thing for cars apparently. This stuff is better than Estee Lauder Daywear. You know, for cars.

But my favorite little detail is this—it’s a common issue with these Chevys for the dash paint to peel off in places if they get Armor Alled too often. Ours was missing the grey paint in 2 spots where the glossy black plastic beneath was shining like a spotlight, if you look closely you can see one big chunk of paint missing toward the windshield and one smaller chunk missing above the A/C vent:

It happened in our other Tahoe, too, but I figured out how to fix it. I went over to Sherwin Williams and gave him the A/C vent to use to make a color match. After a little trial and error and some adjustment to account for the dash having spent more of its life in the sunshine, we came up with the absolute exact match in the same exact (satin) finish in the sample paint size (Color to Go). I rolled it on with a tiny smooth cabinet painting sponge roller. Magic! For less than $10. It was an eyesore before, and now you can’t find it. I dare you!

Is there anything that feels better than making something old look new with little or no money? Just be sure not to put Armor All on these dashes. Apparently they don’t play nice and a clean microfiber cloth cleans it just fine.