Had a little time this weekend, so I did a little restoration on my headlight lens. I had already tried one of those kits you see advertised on TV, but got nowhere.

It was fairly badly pitted (see "Before" photo below). First, I wet-sanded with 600 grit to remove the pits (Photo 2) and then buffed it out with rubbing compound. It took a while - almost 3 hours - but the result was a big improvement.

 

Looks great! How did you work around that little chrome disk?

 

Great work, congrats!

Are you putting something over them now, 3m or some film covers?

 

i did the same with mine this weekend as well !
i used the 3m kit which consists of 500 grit, 800 grit, 2000 grit wetsand, and some compound. mine came out great too !

 

Carefully Seriously, that's all I did.

That's a good idea. Hadn't thought of doing that.

I think that if I had had some 2000 grit, it would have gone a lot faster. The jump from 600 to rubbing compound leaves a lot of scratches that it takes time to get out.

Jon

 

Mine look like they micro cracks or hazing. I had a professional detailed have a crack and it didn't help much. Wonder if this 3M kit you have works any better. Does it have a tool that plugs into your drill as well?

 

If you are not putting nothing over the headlights they will become worst like the first time because you took a layer of protection when you polished it.

Good luck!

 

^What he said. Originally the headlights had UV protection on them. Now that you have scrubbed those off and are not re-applying something, your headlights will only degrade more quickly.

Now I have only found 1 kit that actually includes UV protection. What are you guys using, just the 3M film covers?

 

OK! You guys convinced me. I have a set of Lamin-X films inbound.

Thanks!

Jon

 

I used the Meguiars restoration kit that includes the a bottle of UV protector. It does a pretty good job on medium to light scratches. Heavy scratches will require using a heavy wet grit sandpaper before using their product.

 

Thread revival but tickled pink!
Had my car at a Sportech for some maint and one of the body shop guys in the same complex came by and said he could get them new for $100 or free if no improvement. He ended up removing the lights and wet sanding with coarse grit then finer and finer finishing with a buff. My headlights have always looked horrible but now they look brand new! I'm sooo pleased with this, and to think I was looking at new units on ebay for >$1200.

Now have to figure out what is needed to protect them going forward and sounds like a debate out there.

 

They look great.

 

I have to do my front and rears and then get the Film on fronts.
Jon let me know how you like the film and how it looks.

 

I got the film, but haven't put it on yet. Looks pretty straightforward to install.

I've been traveling a lot. I should get to it when I get back to the US in a couple of weeks.

Jon

 

I put a set of Xpel protective headlight film on when I bought a new 2000 Audi S4 back in 1999. I ran up 103k miles over 9 years in all types of road conditions with no problems whatsoever. They looked great when I sold it so I just left the covers on.