Dull headlight lenses

[Budmantom]

I thought I read that using toothpaste will make the lenses shinier, is this true and should I use a specific brand of toothpaste?

 

[MegaVovaN]

Toothpaste may work. Thing is, you just need any type of fine polish.

I've used some $10 for small can stuff that my brother bought on ebay...worked wonders.

I think you can experiment with polishing compounds. If you try something too rough, you'll have to sand it down with more fine polish after...so try something smooth (obviously not sand or sandpaper).

I think toothpaste will work.

edit: I used that polishing compound and cloth. First rubbed polishing compound with dry cloth all over the lenses, rubbed more till clear, then wiped the polish off with another dry, clean rag.

 

[HiTek21]

do you have textured headlights or clear lens? If you want a quick fix you can try Meguiars PlastX to polish up the plastic but it'll leave light fine scratches. With textured headlights you probably wont even notice the scratches.

 

[helpme]

Originally posted by: HiTek21
do you have textured headlights or clear lens? If you want a quick fix you can try Meguiars PlastX to polish up the plastic but it'll leave light fine scratches. With textured headlights you probably wont even notice the scratches.

PlastX helped somewhat on my GFs car, but those lenses were pretty far gone. It helped on my SRT-4s lenses, but I have not used it on my TSX's lenses since they are pretty new still.

 

[thedarkwolf]

If they are really bad you can wet sand them with 800 grit sand paper and work your way up to 2k grit and then use the plastic polish on them.

 

[HiTek21]

I polished up my uncles headlights on his Tacoma. They were all yellow and dim, they looked near new after but those were textured headlights.

All I used was PlastX and a microfiber towel, it took about 15 minutes. Like thedarkwolf said if you have real bad headlights sand them down and polish them up with some plastic polish. Without a rotary buffer you won't be able to get perfect results though.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Who needs perfect...they get dim again with time...

 

[M2008S]

theres stuff at autozone in a shiny silver plastic pack to clean the lights.. its at autozone/advance auto. its probably $20 but works good, a bit of work

go ask

 

[JulesMaximus]

Meguiars plastic polish is excellent for cleaning foggy plastic. I use it on my Maxima periodically and it works very well. You can buy a bottle of this for about $6-7 IIRC and it will last you a lifetime.

 

[Budmantom]

Buffers or elbow grease?

 

[ViviTheMage]

Originally posted by: Budmantom
Buffers or elbow grease?

 

[compman25]

baking soda is good to use as a polish also.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Originally posted by: compman25
baking soda is good to use as a polish also.

I think this would be a little rough.

 

[LordUnum]

A couple of months ago, I masked off the very dulled, fogged, & yellowed headlights of my parents' 2001 Forester before wet-sanding with 1500-, then 2000-grit sandpaper (spent a good 10-15 min. on each light sanding in alternating up-down, left-right motions, no swirling), then followed up with applying some Meguiar's Plast-X. What a difference new-looking headlights make on a car; it looks like a well-maintained late-model car again.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: LordUnum
A couple of months ago, I masked off the very dulled, fogged, & yellowed headlights of my parents' 2001 Forester before wet-sanding with 1500-, then 2000-grit sandpaper (spent a good 10-15 min. on each light sanding in alternating up-down, left-right motions, no swirling), then followed up with applying some Meguiar's Plast-X. What a difference new-looking headlights make on a car; it looks like a well-maintained late-model car again.

I'd bet some plastic polish would have worked just as well and you wouldn't have had to sand anything.

 

[Safeway]

Yea, toothpaste has fine aggregate in it. Should work. Plastic polish won't make your lenses minty fresh.

 

[compman25]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN

Originally posted by: compman25
baking soda is good to use as a polish also.

I think this would be a little rough.

Then you haven't tried it.

 

[nakedfrog]

Ragnarok's Official Headlight Restoration Guide with *PICS*

 

[Throckmorton]

I just used rubbing compound on my headlights on Saturday. It helped a lot. Then I used baking soda and that helped some more. I need to get some fine sandpaper. There's a chemical (not polish) that worked great on my 240sx, but I lent it to my brother and he lost it AND forgot I even gave it to him. It came in a blue and white bottle from Autozone, and it took the stuff right off like magic. I wish I could remember the name.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Meguiars plastic polish is excellent for cleaning foggy plastic. I use it on my Maxima periodically and it works very well. You can buy a bottle of this for about $6-7 IIRC and it will last you a lifetime.

Plastx followed by #10.

They sell kits as well for DA polishers.

 

[klod]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Ragnarok's Official Headlight Restoration Guide with *PICS*

QFT - just did this to my Grand Voyager with 214,000 miles. Didn't have a buffer, turned out fantastic.