klc317

Trust me, SoCal sounds good this time of year! From late December to late March there is a constant crust of salt and nasty crap on the roads here in Cincinnati. Plus it's just plain cold, cloudy, and dreary....yuk! I'm usually driving my work car (a Chevy HHR) but when I get to ride in the MKX on the weekends the heated seats and dual climate control is a serious perk. Makes riding in the cold weather somewhat more tolerable.

Since winter is in full force I like to hear about your preservation tactics of your vehicle. There is a good car wash down the street but I prefer to avoid them because they use a big brush that they dip into a bucket of dirty/soapy water to manually scrub the gunk off the back of the car before going through the wash. Of course the wash also has what they call "soft touch" brushes throughout the trip through the wash but it is a big scratchy mess as more and more dirty/salty vehicles go through. You can just hear it beating on your paint the whole way through and makes me cringe! Anyone that has seen pics of my vehicles or knows me knows that I am a cleanliness/perfection fool when it comes to my cars and winter just kills me....lol There is also a no-touch drive through wash the same distance the other way that is just an automated spray off deal. No brushes. I prefer to use that since it seems to not incur the dreaded swirl marks and has a high-pressure underbody wash bar that seems to do OK at rinsing some of the grit off the bottom of the car as you drive in. I always drive as slowly as possible over that until it times out...lol! I know this is not exactly good either since I've heard they recycle their water and blast the used water back onto your car but you've gotta do something when the vehicle is crusted in salt and gunk and it's way too cold to drag out the hose in the driveway. At least too cold to not have the neighbors question your sanity. What are your opinions?

Ugh its been in the teens every day and snowy/salty for about 2 weeks here in Cincinnati. Just ran the MKX through the only decent touchless car wash here in my part of town to at least wash the worst of the crust off. Can't wait until warm weather. My poor work car (an '09 Chevy HHR) is an absolute mess. It was blue but now a 3 tone shade of brown, white, and dingy blue. Gotta run it through some sort of wash tomorrow. I HATE winter and salt!!

You can do that...but: The front door speakers have the crossover (for the tweeters) built onto the speaker itself. The full signal heads there first and is split off to the tweeter via a crossover to the tweeter. The crossover is built into the factory 6x8 speaker itself. There is a plug going in (full signal) and another plug going out (tweeter signal) so a regular aftermarket swap with a regular speaker will render your tweeters un-operational. You will need a component system for the front. You can use 6.5" with an adapter plate to fit the 6x8 opening (which I had planned to do) or do what I did and use the 6x8 mids and a seperate tweeter. I used (or ordered, still haven't put in) a set of Infinity 680.9cs components. Another user here already got his put in and was happy with them. Been so cold and nasty here lately I just haven't felt like putting them in...maybe next week. As for the back, any old 6x8 will do. There are no seperate rear tweeters factory. Just the regular old Ford 6x8 crappy speaker. I originally bought a set of 4 Pioneer Premier TS-D802P for the front and read door locations but was only able to use them in the rear doors due to the front tweeter situation. I still have a brand new set of two left if ya wanna buy them! lol. If I remember correctly, the depth of these speakers is 2.5 inches and everything works fine...no clearance issues at all. You could certainly use a 6.5" speaker back here also with an adapter plate. I put in a set of the foam speaker baffles and applied a square of Dynamat behind each rear speaker and plan to do the same for the fronts. Certainly doesn't hurt to deaden the resonance and improve the sound.

I am also interested in seeing pics of a grey one in the Greystone interior. I have been thinking about buying one but I would like to see how the colors go together. Pics Please!!

Wondering if someone could help me determine the exact part name and number of the seat track end plastic covers on our MKX. They are located on the front and rear of the front seat track ends, kinda like a cover to make it look nicer. A couple of ours have cracks in them and I would like to replace them. Our '07 MKX has the Greystone interior. For some reason I cant get the links to the parts to copy & paste over correctly but I think I found the parts I need on this website by looking up the seat track parts for our vehicle in the parts catalog. http://fastpartsnetwork.com/ They are kinda pricey for simple plastic covers and thats why I would like to make sure I'm ordereing the correct parts. I have ordered from them before for various small items and always get a genuine Ford part wrapped in new Ford plastic. If anyone needs a pic I can take a few. Thanks for your help!

True! Trouble is that my hands aren't smalll so I still managed to scrape my wrists all up getting in there. Oh well, a little skin damage is still worth doing the job right yourself IMO.

DWTC I sent you a PM.

Correct. I am perfectly capable of understanding what a torque wrench does as I was a machinist for 12 years and own lots of high end metal working, mechanic, and measuring tools including several expensive torque wrenches if that matters in this particular situation. But, my point was that whoever put the drain plug on at the dealer service department installed the bolt/drain plug way too tight and either ignored the rounded off condition of the bolt head or contributed to its degraded condition. A good snug with a regular old everyday ratchet on the drain plug is plenty to install it. In this case a socket was not even able to be placed over the drain plug head as it was so rounded/worn and at that point should have been replaced anyway.

I didn't realize you were from the same area until now. Nice to see a fellow Cincy resident. That Edge of yours doesn't happen to be the one that came from Kings Auto Mall is it?

If anyone has any questions or need info on this please feel free to ask. Hopefully I can be of some help.

Ok heres some pics. Didn't take any of the install because it is fairly straightforward. Not a bad setup to have all this through the lowly factory (non nav or sirius) radio that our MKX came with. We like it! Regular FM/6CD/MP3 radio in an MKX: But wait, nows there more! Sirius: Scolling through the title on Howard 100, this week has been "History of Howard Stern": Some '90s channel: Halfway through the title scrolling: Ipod control...well, Iphone 3G actually... Halfway through scrolling the title of Alice In Chains Man In the Box running off my Iphone:

Decided it was time to swap out all the headlight, high beams, and fog lights to Silverstars in our '07 MKX. Thought I'd take a few pics and do a little how to on getting at the fog light bulbs in case it helps anyone. Dont mean to sound like Captain Obvious but since they are somewhat covered up by splash guards and stuff from behind and underneath I figured it would be helpful. The headlight and high beams are pretty much a no brainer so I didn't bother taking pics of that process. First, the vehicle is all dirty and salty, usually not kept this way but it is about 15-20 degrees outside and the roads are a little nasty so thats the way it is. At least the garage is a nice comfy 50 degrees so it's tolerable to do some work. The easiest way I found was to pull out these bolts in the fender liner. The neighbor is always borrowing my tools so I was missing a few of my small millimeter sockets so a 7/32" worked just fine. Those new Michelin Latitudes we got have been awesome so far, very happy with them: Next, they put that big molded plastic tab in the way so the bulb can't back out so you have to carefully get the harness loose off the bulb without breaking the tabs. Kind of a tricky step since you can only seem to get one hand easily in there. Here is a pic with the harness loose and the bulb out of the socket: Then, put the bulb in, twist it into the socket, and re-attach the harness. I prefer to add a dab of dielectric grease to the electrical connections just to make sure no moisture gets in there: Obviously the next step is to reinstall the fender liner screws and test it out. Back to normal. I've used Silverstars for so long I couldn't stand driving this MKX at night anymore with its stock bulbs. I just like the color and added visibility.

Thought you may enjoy a few pics and a video of an F0 tornado/funnel cloud that moved over our house last spring. Preceeded by lots of storrminess and hail. It touched down briefly about 10 miles to the east but wasn't strong enough to cause any damage and wasn't near any neighborhoods by that point: Ignore my crazy neighbors voice in this one...haha!. I was trying to film how fast the tops of the clouds were building, very interesting...I love this stuff: http://s97.photobucket.com/albums/l209/klc...nt=M2U00042.flv Pics

Heres a couple photos of a couple of our vehicles using clay and Meguires NXT. I have tried using Zaino also but it is just too much of a pain to use and this is much easier and gives great results. All of these vehicles were purchased at least slightly used and the photos are after I did my thing to them. Our MKX Neighbors VUE that I detail for them several times a year: '07 F150 FX2 that I used to have: My Dads '03 F150: The '07 Mariner we traded in on the MKX: And the vehicle I miss the most, my '03 Ranger:

I use Meguires Gold Class Leather cleaner and conditioner. Works well and smells nice. When we first got the MKX in September (it's an '07) it was obvious the seats had rarely if ever been treated. I've been using this product regularly since then and the seats are in much better condition, clean, and for lack of a better word "supple". We have the Greystone interior that is a bit more difficult to keep clean but we are careful not to eat in the vehicle and to not leave any items laying on the seats. When I had my '03 Ranger, I found a decent set of leather/power/heated bucket seats out of a wrecked '01 Ford Explorer to swap into it and the seats were decent, but quite dirty and a little dry. After really going at them for several days with this product they came out like brand new. I was impressed with the restoration properties of the Meguires product so I feel good about using it in our MKX to maintain the seats. I have heard that you don't want to use it very liberally around the seams because it can deteriorate the stitching over time if left to soak in. Not sure 100% about that but I have heard.

How about $90 shipped?

Yeah, taking door panels off of this vehicle is really easy aside from trying to pop up the cover in the finger-pull without scratching the plastic. I ended up with those foam speaker thingies just cause I thought they would help keep the speakers cleaner and block the moisture if the window is rolled down while wet although I'm sure they don't make much difference...lol. I've had the back panels off several times and the fronts once just long enough to realize that the speakers I had originally bought wouldn't work.

They actually sent me an Email today with some additional instructions, a firmware update link, and a reset procedure that wasn't included in my kit and all is well now. Very happy! Excellent customer service from TSS radio.

Great! I haven't got mine yet but I'm glad to see your install turned out well. They are supposed to be here early next week. If you have any more pics they would be appreciated but I think I see what I need to do based on the couple that you posted. Thanks! I'm not really concerned about clipping off the factory tweeter holders since I doubt if I would ever put them back in. Nice "DIY" job on the aftermarket tweeters! Did you happen to put in any Dynamat or anything? I am glad to hear that you are happy with the improvement in sound. Anything would be better than the puny factory 6x8s that look identical to the ones in all Ford vehicles I have owned since the '80s models. I've been busy with the PXAMG/Sirius/Ipod control through the factory radio thing today so I've had plenty to deal with as it is. Our MKX came with the regular radio (non-nav) and without Sirius so I had to solve that. Very happy with how it turned out. Its about 45-50 degrees in the garage, 15 or so outside so the hours I spent weren't too uncomfy...haha.

Probably but either one applies way too much torque/twist for an oil pan drain plug and neither should be used. All it takes is a good snugging with a ratchet.

The oil filter was a bit of a battle also. Took the strap wrench and some serious whacks with a rubber mallet to get that started loose. It was on so tight that the seal from the filter was still stuck on the engine/oil filter base. I'm positive they didn't properly lubricate the seal like you are supposed to when you put a new filter on. Unacceptable. ANYWAY: Everything is now properly installed with a new drain plug, properly "hand" tightened, a fresh Motorcraft oil filter, also properly tightened (a tad more than hand tight) and fresh Mobil 1 5w-20 synthetic. What a battle!! At least I would have to deal with that anymore.

Decided today was a good day to do the first home oil change in the MKX and switch it over to full synthetic. The last oil change was performed by the dealer when we bought the vehicle in September. Crawled underneath and the oil drain plug was slightly rounded off but I can usually still get them loose. Wrong....somebody had torqued the plug on so tight I could kill somebody! It was rounded off to the point I couldn't get a grip on it with a socket or box end wrench anymore before I even got started. Took myself, monumental feats of strength while laying on my back, lots of cussing, a completely rounded off head, and finally a long pipe wrench to finally break it loose. I'm no weakling by any means but it took just about all I had to fight that bolt. Why in the world they would torque that drain plug on so tight that it rounded the head off is beyond me. I'm lucky I finally got it loose on that last try because the head of the drain plug was becoming so mangled I was running out of ideas of how to get a grip on it. I guess I'm lucky the threads are still intact on the oil pan after that. Needless to say that is the last time I will ever let that dealer do any maintainence on any of my vehicles. Now I'm off to battle the oil filter, then off to the parts store for a new drain plug...wish me luck! Had to stop and have an early afternoon beer after that mess!

Got this installed this morning, only took about 30 minutes and most of that was removing the radio stack trim and the center console trim. Unfortunately, the Ipod function works great but I cant get it to recognize the Sirius tuner. Either a bad tuner or the Gateway box isn't properly programmed to accept the SCC1 Sirius tuner. They are closed today but hopefully I can get in touch with them tomorrow. The harness going to the Gateway box from the radio is just long enough to hide the box under the cupholder/gearshift area where there is plenty of room. Good kit so far once we get the Sirius snafu sorted out. I'm glad I didn't waste the time of running and hiding all the antenna wire in case I have to return the tuner.

Thanks. Those will come in handy to plan my attack before the speakers arrive.