One thing that I'd like to address on the '10 FEH is some oxidation on the 16" factory aluminum rims. I don't want to dismount them from the car, and the oxidation is not terrible, but it looks bad enough. Does anyone have a product recommendation that can help clean up the oxidation and make them look a little nicer? I'm not looking for a factory finish but I would like to make them look a little better and prevent more oxidation from occurring.

Any suggestions appreciated.

You can see some in this picture on a couple of the "spokes" and it's worse on the other side. It just makes the wheels look "mottled" and I'd like to improve that.

Thanks!

 

exactly my color (if the code is ws (white swede)) and exactly my car except you have chrome (it appears) on the rack rails (but i have a stub (aftermarket) antenna).
i did not use anything special - just what i had around the house and it worked good enough - Super Clean all wheel cleaner in a purple bottle - at advance and oreilly
and probably others.
i had commented to the seller how good the wheels looked and like he said, you will not have much brake dust with regenerative braking. HOwever, they were NOT
that good because i took each one off to clean the back also and there was somewhat of the usual build-up of caked on brake dust. i let the super clean soak for a
short time and it was not really hard to remove all the grime and the wheels looked close to brand new. and this was an 11 year old suv (now 12) but the scrubbing was not anything compared to the 2008 Kia that i got in the year 10 and it only had 26 k compared to the hybrid at 219 k.
reading about the different pads, the ceramic produce the least amount of dust and they also produce a very fine dust as compared to the other two (leaving carbon metallic out of the picture). Semi-metallic is very bad as far as brake dust and i think that is what is on the KIa (have never changed them). that explains why the kia was so bad. And i was saying to myself that this seems to be a very fine dust (as i was working on the ford escape).

 

mine is an 09 and it does not have the running boards (although it is a limited)

 

What happened with the steering problem??? Jeez, we go through all that and you leave me hanging? Lol.

 

sorry - and thanxs for all the replies;
left it sit because of work and it was on blocks;
wanted to finalize today (will do)

 

Thanks for the tips, so far the brake dust with the pads I put on the front (Ford OEM correct for "regenerative braking system" part number) have been good in terms of brake dust. I'm waiting for some warmer weather to pretty up the rims, hopefully that's arriving soon.

I never use the running boards. I think they're 99.9% decorative, and actually I don't like how they discolor as they age. I get very little use out of them and as you can see the plastic discolors with UV bombardment. I'll try to make them look nicer too as the weather warms up, but I think probably I've used them...once?

The previous owner (doctor) was a woman who is about 5 foot 2 inches tall. She may have wanted them because of her height. I'm 6 feet tall and I never need them. I can't complain: she took fantastic care of the rest of the car and sold it to me in almost perfect condition.