Headlight restoration

I was detailing a friends suv and the headlights were so bad I just had to do something about it.

Here are the lights.







I wasn't sure how much time I wanted to spend on them but I didn't want it to leave looking like that. So I taped off the body and just used a buffer with a finishing pad and Meguairs Dual Action. Here are the results.



They are much better but still are hazy. I could have left them like that but it would drive me crazy. Next I grabbed some 800 grit wet sand paper and some water and went to work.



I then went to 2000 grit (I would normally go to 1000, then 1500, then 2o00 but I ran out of those grits. You can jump up and skip a step but it will take more work.) and sanded the 800 grit scratches. What your doing is removing any damage and imperfections while putting in your own scratches. You would step up to a finer sand paper removing those scratches. Then you repeat to you are at about 2000 grit which is a fine sand paper.

At this point you have to polish them to bring out a shine. You can do it by hand if you don't have a buffer or orbital polisher. I decided to use the buffer with the finishing pad and Meguairs Dual Action.



I thought I took some close ups but maybe I didn't I will take some of those and add them. As you can see, the left light is the before, and the right one is the after.

Doing this will improve the look of a car. It won't look so old and tired and it will allow more light to brighten the road which will make your drive safer.

This is a cheap and easy fix. Replacing them could cost hundreds. You can have someone do them for you for about $40-80. Or you could do them yourself for a few dollars in materials and your time.

James

 

It depends on the condition of the lights. I used a cream (a medium grade polish) and a buffer which steps things up a bit. If it is aggressive enough it will work to clear up the lights. But if they are really bad it will take you longer or only get you so far.

For something that has heavy pits from road debris, it will have to be sanded to remove the pitting.

So the quick answer is maybe. They might work, it just depends on the condition of the lens and what you want the final results to be. If you want them to be as close to perfect as possible I believe you will need to do more to achieve the desired results.

James

 

There are also kits that have sanding disks that connect to a electric drill.

James

 

If you do you lights you should take lots of pictures and post them up. Its always good to see how different products work.

James

 

Here are some more pics of the headlights.





James

 

Thanks. Yeah a lot of people don't know that they can be cleaned up without a huge amount of money or work.

James

 

Depends on how you look at it. Those lights are already damaged. You will have you light output limited by that haze. You have 3 choices. Replace the lights, repair them or use as is which could be a safety issue if you drive in an area without street lights.

There does seem to be a film of some sort on the lens which was coming off on this suv. Not sure if they have uv protection in it. If it does then its gone if you sand they a lot. But if they are in this kind of shape then its not helping anymore.

If I light polish will work then that is all you should do. If they need more work then you have to go the route I did. Whem they go bad again you can redo them. My friend said he did his 4 times. Now he doesn't want to bother with them.

So this will keep you buying new lights today.

James

 

Thanks. And thanks for the video. It does show the difference. I never would have thought of using Avocado. That kit they used looked like it had little sanding pads so it would be similar to what I did but at a higher cost.

James

 

No problem with the posted video. It was a great video.

James