Driven Auto Detail: Prisoner Van from hell !!!

[Driven Auto Detail]

Hey peeps, thought I'd post one of my recent jobs. The vehicle belongs to the Brownsburg Police Department and it serves as the prisoner transport van. Being 11 years old and never garaged, it was very oxidized and beat up. The Chief of Police asked me if I could do anything for it and I told him I'd do what I could. To my surprise, it was actually a single stage paint. Needless to say, I went home wearing a lot of red paint on my shirt and pants. Plus, all my towels were red. Ok, on to the job...

Brought in from the rain:

With this van being in such bad condition, I needed a heavy hitter. It was washed via foam cannon containing a few ounces of Chem. Guys CW&G and scrubbed a soft wheel brush. After washing I allowed it to air dry as to not ruin my good drying towels:

After washing, it was time to mark off a test spot to see what I was up against:

 

[Driven Auto Detail]

I decided on a Meg's YELLOW polishing pad, Optimum Compound, and my new Makita rotary. I had never used the rotary before, so I thought this would be a good vehicle to test on:

After tackling the hood, I moved on to the side of the van. I had to leave the smaller areas for hand polishing at the end:

By now, my YELLOW Meg's polishing pad had turned into what looked like a BURGUNDY Meg's cutting pad:

More "work in progress" pics:

 

[Driven Auto Detail]

After about 7 hours of work, and a little AquaWax to top it off, here is the end result:

I will say that the paint was far from perfect, however, knowing what the vehicle is used for, the goal of this job was just to make it look BETTER.

Comments, questions welcomed! Thanks for viewing!

 

[Dust2Glory]

That is a total 180!!!! looks amazing!!!! like new!!!

 

[Driven Auto Detail]

Thanks D2G!

 

[blk45]

Great turn around, but why Aquawax? It's obvious they aren't going to take care of it, so why not use something more durable? Just curious. Again, very nice improvement!

 

[ehuth1]

Speechless!! Nice work Mike!

 

[Driven Auto Detail]

Thanks blk45! The reason I only opted for AW is because the van was still in bad shape in a lot of areas (ie - rust). Plus, the "town garage" that I was working in was closing down so I didn't have much time to throw on a wax.

Thanks Eric!

 

[Tex Star Detail]

How many pads did you end up using?

Looks great. There are a lot of those Dodge vans running around here that look like that one before you started. Wonder why Dodge opted for a SS paint job rather than a BC/CC one......

 

[blk45]

Thanks blk45! The reason I only opted for AW is because the van was still in bad shape in a lot of areas (ie - rust). Plus, the "town garage" that I was working in was closing down so I didn't have much time to throw on a wax.

Thanks Eric!

I figured you had a good explanation. They should be very happy with the results.

 

[Bigfoot]

The prisoners will be happy going to the hole on that van! Great job!

 

[Smith2287]

Great work a real turn around.

 

[Driven Auto Detail]

Thanks guys!

TexasTB,
I used 2 pads total. After each pass, I'd clean the pad with my pad cleaning brush (can't think of exact name for the tool).

 

[Tonya]

WOW! That thing was nasty! Great turn around... looks sooooo much better!

 

[klumzypinoy]

That Van was pretty bad! The results are awesome

 

[Z06-Goose]

They should be very happy with the results.

I agree, especially the prisoners will be proud to have a nice, shining looking ride to cruise to the courthouse and back

 

[supercharged]

WOW! great job detailing that polisce vehicle, they might like it so much, you'll end up detailing more police vehicles.

 

[Driven Auto Detail]

Thanks everyone!

supercharged,
I actually did a few mini-details on some of the department squad cars because they had inspections impending. Although, it's each officers responsibility to maintain the appearance of their car and it comes out of their own pocket. The department has and is moving to Chargers (and let me tell you they look bad-a$$). Unfortunately the only squad cars I got this first time around were Vics and Impalas. Hopefully, next spring I can talk at least one of the Charger officers to let me detail their cars.