North of Chicago, in Gurnee, Illinois, Auto Parts City sells, scraps, and parts out cars people junk. Vehicles land at their lot for a variety of reasons: a car wreck, mechanical failure, and all else. This week, the salvage yard shared what happened when a group of high schoolers decorated a mom’s minivan for homecoming…with permanent spray paint.

The Toyota Sienna, covered from front bumper to liftgate, landed at the yard as a “vandalized total loss.” The yard owner, though, knows how durable these vans are mechanically. The 2004 year model only had 130,000 miles on it, so plenty of life left. Rather than part it out, he decided to attempt to remove the paint. Watch the process below.

Auto Parts City filmed their process for removing the “custom” paint job

These kids must have spent a lot of time painting before an adult realized the damage that had been done. The van was originally a metallic champagne tone. You can see it’s been totally covered in white spray paint.

I wrote body estimates for years at a shop here in Ohio. To strip, match, repaint, and clear coat say, a door panel, it’s at least several hundred bucks. Most panels are about $500, with huge variations between different body shops, regions, and panel size (tailgate versus hood, for instance.)

As you can imagine, then, if you need a whole car repainted, the costs add up quick.

And the magic easer is…Easy Off?

After several attempts and a ton of power washing, the APC crew took a tip from the comments section of their social media account. As it turns out, Easy Off oven cleaner did the trick.

One commenter asked how the product can get spay paint off the van without damaging the original paint. “As long as the base color has urethane clear coat applied, which all cars have you will not damage the base paint,” another answered. The commenter “in the know” says they use Easy Off to remove sponsor names painted on their race cars. “Since sponsors change year to year I just spray easy off on the lettering to be removed and it’s ready for the new sponsors.”

After removing the spray paint, the scrap yard sent it to auction

In the end, a dealership purchased the Sienna at auction. Later, it listed the van for sale, with a sticker price of $5,900.

While I understand why a family would think the vehicle wasn’t salvageable, I’m glad someone else decided to give removing the spray paint a try and kept the car going. Similar to recycling our waste as opposed to sending it to the landfill, you might imagine the number of fixable cars that get sent to the junkyard every year.