Aldo called me on a Friday afternoon at the end of June about his Telluride. It was a 2027, about as new as a car can be, and he wanted a full detail. He was upfront about it on the phone: there was sand in it, and his kids ride in it. He called back to book, and that Sunday afternoon the Telluride rolled into the garage.
New Car, Real Life
A lot of people figure a brand new car does not need a detail yet. Then they look in the back seat. A three row SUV is built to haul a family around, and in Panama City that means beach days, practice, school pickup and snacks in between. The sand comes home in shoes and towels and settles right into the carpet.
This one had the added challenge of a cream leather interior with black carpet. Light seats show every smudge, and dark carpet shows every grain of sand and bit of lint. When I pulled it in and started the before photos, the second row floor had exactly what you would expect from a car the whole family uses: sand, crumbs and little bits of debris spread from the seat rails to the door sill.
The Work
Inside, the carpet was the big job. Sand does not come up with one quick pass of a vacuum. It works its way down into the fibers and hides along the seat tracks, so the rear floors got worked over slowly, section by section, around every rail and anchor. The cream leather seats got cleaned carefully, along with the doors, the console and the dash, so the whole cabin matched instead of just the parts you see from the driver seat.
Outside, the Telluride got a full foam bath and a hand wash, top down. The wheels and tires got cleaned so the brake dust and road grime were gone from the lower half, and the wheel wells were cleaned out too. On black paint that last part matters, because a dirty lower half makes a clean car look unfinished. If you want to see what is in each package, our detailing page breaks it all down.
The Result
By about 8:30 that night the Telluride was parked under the hex lights, deep black outside and clean inside, with that cream leather looking the way it did the day it left the lot. The second row floor photo above is the one I would show any parent thinking about a detail. Same area, and the sand is simply gone.
It is the last day of September as I write this, the first stretch of fall in Panama City, and it is a great time to reset a family car. Summer sand is still hiding in a lot of carpets, love bugs are back on the roads, and hurricane season has a couple of months left. If your SUV looks like that before photo, take a look at our SUV and family car detailing and give me a call. I do every job here personally, in a climate controlled garage, one vehicle at a time.