I have been looking for something that works well to clean water spots off of the XLT brushed aluminum tailgate panel for a while now. This worked good for me. Wash the tailgate or at least rinse it off and then use the stainless steel appliance cleaning wipes to clean it.

 

My wife uses baby oil with an old sock on our stainless appliances.

 

WD-40 after each wash. Looks like new.

 

My friend told me his Dad uses the WD40 trick. We tried that on mine and it looked great until it rained, then it looked terrible. Even after washing the truck it still looked worse than before. I imagine the baby oil method works similar.

I don't really want something that has to be applied every time I wash the truck, just something for periodic cleaning. I know it may not look as good as the WD or baby oil, but it does look alot better and its clean.

If someone knows of something that works better for cleaning it, tell us what you use.

 

Noxon metal cleaner. Then wax the metal so water cant spot it.

 

I use a aluminum polish then a coat of wax about twice a year keeps it looking good! now if i could only find the brackets to put it back on so's to take a picture.

 

avialiable from ford
q2 of e7tz-9942596-b ends
q1 of e7tz-9942596-a center


roughly 13.00 dollars each

 

Use SharkHide metal protector

 

Never tried it, but I would think that Mother's Aluminum Polish would work really well on the aluminum tailgate finish panel. You just rub it in until it turns black and buff it out. This would probably last about as long as it takes you re-wax your truck. It makes aluminum wheels look like NEW.

 

I hate going there but looks like it's my only option.

Thats exactly what i do cept i apply wax after.

 

I'm leary of using polishes on it, because its not bare aluminum. It has a coating on it. Several years ago we tried Never Dull on one and it stripped the coating off.