2010 Ford Crown Victoria

Before

This is my co-worker Brenna's 2010 Ford Crown Victoria. This car has almost 200,000 miles on it and it is a retired police cruiser. You can see that there are some places in the paint where it has come off. Brenna is from Virginia, and something that is a common problem there is there are trees that drip sap on cars, and if that does not get cleaned off really fast and it is allowed to dry and bake on the paint, it will peel off the paint when it gets power washed off.

That combined with the humidity, any rust on the car can spread if the rust is not contained by getting it sanded off.

The interior of this car is probably one of the dirtiest I have seen. Besides it not being cleaned in a very long time, Brenna is a botany major, so she often has compost and plants in her car.

Overall, there really was not that much garbage or junk in the car, it was just really dirty and had dust on the dash.

A LOT of dust.

There was a ton of mud and mud caked on the floors, especially on the floor of the driver's seat.

The trunk was the messiest part of the whole car. I did not get a picture of it, but there was leftover compost and dirt at the bottom of it that I got to vacuum out.

The engine bay on this car was super dirty and really greasy. It looked like it had never been washed before.

There was more damage on the roof of the car where tree sap had damaged the paint. There was also some rust that had started to form.

Same story on the rear.

Overall, the side panels had the least damage. There were not very many dings or scratches, so I mostly had to focus on sealing the finish so the paint continues to last.

The tires were really dull, as you can see. They had a lot of break dust build-up and it looked like they had never really been washed before. Those hubcaps were sweet, though!

After

After a good deep clean, the interior of the car looked so much better! The dirt had darkened the seats and the dash, so after it was all taken off it looked so much nicer.

I got rid of the rest of the dirt and some trash that was left in this compartment.

No more dust!

The interior of the car looked so much better after vacuuming it. It is amazing how much dirt and dust gets in the seats if you let it build up.

The floors of this car were vinyl, so they were really easy to shampoo and I was able to dry them by hand. I had to vacuum for a long time before that because of all the pebbles and mud that were on the floor. It looks so much better now!

After the trunk was vacuumed out, I shampooed it gently to get out any weird smells or stains. After that I let it air-dry so no mildew or mold would grow...that would leave even more weird smells, and we did not want that!

The engine bay. This was a really big engine bay, so it took a little longer to get it cleaned and dried after. It looks so much better now that it is able to run without all that grease and dirt on it!

I had a hard time getting a good picture of the roof, but you can tell it looks a lot better! Brenna wanted me to sand down any of the rough spots so the paint would stop peeling, as well as sand out any of the rust. It looks so much nicer without any rust showing!

Same story on the rear.

As well as the front. After waxing it, it helped condition the paint (though I made sure not to wax where there was no paint) and since I sanded down the places where the sap ruined the paint, the paint should not peel.

Overall, the paint looks really good! The paint should last a lot longer as long as it is taken care of. It is a lot more shiny since it has been washed and waxed!

Last but not least, the tires! They look so much shinier since I put that tire shine on them! The hubcaps also look really good. I made sure I polished them and made got all of the brake dust out.
















Conclusion

Brenna was really pleased with her car! She was amazed that I was able to get all of the dirt out and said I did a better job than expected! I let her know about how to take care of the paint-less spots and how to keep the paint from peeling. She was really happy that I could teach her a little better how to take care of her car and that everything turned out so well.