HEADLIGHT OXIDATION REMOVAL

[William E Reed]

IS THERE AN EASY WAY TO GET RID OF THE CRUD ON HEADLIGHTS? MY 2000 TOWN AND COUNTRY HAS PLASTIC HEADLIGHT COVERS. THEY ARE SERIOUSLY FOGGED. I BOUGHT A KIT. IT USES ABRASIVES AND AN ELECTRIC DRILL.
IS THERE ANY SOLVENT I CAUSE INSTEAD?
THANKS, BILL

Topic

[Mike]

There’s a number of solvents that can be used such as Insect repellent (DEET) and Acetone, but using chemicals like that only makes it look good for a short amount of time. The solvents weaken the surface of the plastic and cause it to become more fogged than it was before in a very short amount of time compared to the years it took for it to originally happen.

There is no easy way to restore headlights because the proper way to do it is to wet sand the surface with a series of progressively finer grits. The easy part is the kit you bought which is for the final polishing, which allows you to let a machine do the work. Just using the kit without sanding will help a lot, but will leave behind the underlying blotchiness of the plastic which is what properly sanding it removes first. Properly sanding it takes a long time and a lot of energy and basically sucks to do, but you can get perfect results if that’s what you’re after.

Just to be clear, using only your kit will produce much better results than using solvent. People tout the solvents because it’s quick and easy to do, and looks good the day you do it so it feels like a big win at the time.

[William E Reed]

A WISER MAN THAN I OBSERVED THAT”:NOTHING DIFFICULT IS EVER EASY.” I APPRECIATE THE THOROUGH EXPLANATION, BILL

[John Ferguson]

I used a plastic headlight restoration kit from Meguire’s recently and it worked well. It took a great deal of patience. The Meguire’s kit had some 4000 grit sanding pads that worked good to finish off the lens before polishing. Just work slowly and make sure to use plenty of water and mask off the surrounding areas. This removes all UV protection so you will have to regularly reapply the conditioner to keep the lenses clear. Duplicolor has a kit that seems to have a wipe on coating that lasts longer.

[Chris]

[quote=”SLOjohnny” post=162690]I used a plastic headlight restoration kit from Meguire’s recently and it worked well. It took a great deal of patience. The Meguire’s kit had some 4000 grit sanding pads that worked good to finish off the lens before polishing. Just work slowly and make sure to use plenty of water and mask off the surrounding areas. This removes all UV protection so you will have to regularly reapply the conditioner to keep the lenses clear. Duplicolor has a kit that seems to have a wipe on coating that lasts longer.[/quote]
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=chris+fix+headlights&view=detail&mid=BC3C10220C886A3A7F86BC3C10220C886A3A7F86&FORM=VIRE you are welcome 🙂

[David]

I think the sand and paint method is probably the longest lasting solution, but if you are looking at Kits, the 3M kit has been reviewed by Eric here and it seems to work pretty well.

]http://www.ericthecarguy.com/body-videos/1079-restoring-headlights-with-3m-kit

[bdc]

I simply replaced the bulbs with leds. Doesn’t make the plastic coverings look pretty. Works, without replacing the assembly, which is the only long term headlight solution with plastic headlights.

[Author]

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