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How to clean faded headlights


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Does you ES have horrible faded plastic headlights?

Well I was cleaning my car one day and kept seeing thoise dreadful headlights with a brown tinge to the plastic. I was thinking of ways to clean these headlights... Now i remeber when the car was in the garage and Toyota backed my car out of the garage and they scratched the fender... I went bananas at them.. then one of their monkies come flying round the corner with a bottle of cutting compound and rubbed the scratch out. Now this gave me an idea on the headlights.

So next day I rubbed cutting compound on the front of the lenses and to my astonishment they came out perfect.. not scratch or a bit of fadiness.. in fact the lights looked brand new.

So best thing is to get some cutting compound used for paintwork and place a blob on a clean rag and rub in a circular motion (make sure you do not rub paintwork) ater about a minute of all over rubbing on the headlight, wipe of excess and buff it up and then you should see the difference.

I used something called T-Cut.. I doubt if you will find it but just ask for rubbing or cutting compound or paste.

I have seen on the net a few other methods which apparently work and one is Smokers toothpaste! But i am not sure how good this is.

Anyway good luck

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  • 10 months later...

hmm i will have to look for that

a few of my customers bmw's have that problem alot

the e36 3 series has a plastic cover and it yellows like crazy

i would be able to buff it out as i have a high speed pro buffer

looked better but the plastic had yellowed not just a film on top to remove

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  • 1 month later...

So you guys are saying that the brown tint on the headlights are on the inside of the plastic? My headlights are browning and I would like to make them clean too... you're saying the cutting compound will work for me?

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the best solution is to get a new set. in my case, the insurance paid for my new set, but then again, it also messed up my car's front end. stupid father and hitting people from behind. not sure how long the ES will be kept. most likely until it breaks down, and then another Lex most likely.

my headlights look great, but my top grille and bottom bumper are freakishly ugly. bad paint job and a few scratches among other things.

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  • 4 years later...

Mine were gross...I used a kit I bought from Discount Auto Parts.... $20 and they look BRAND new....lifetime warranty. I've had a ton of friends use it too...can't remember the name..call them and they will now what I'm talking about!

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But I, like many other people here, enjoy detailing. I could easily afford to pay someone top dollar to detail my car but I don't because I enjoy doing it myself.

For my car, just the headlights WHOLESALE are $350 a side unshipped.

Now for me its not an issue because my car is pretty new and its been maintained well from the start. I don't have any fading or clouding in my headlamps. Say a 98 LS400? $340 a side WHOLESALE.

That also doesn't take into account the fact that if you have significant yellowing and clouding once you replace the headlamps you'll need to replace the turnsignals and the foglamps too. For my ES the turnsignals are built into the headlamps, but the foglights are $170 a side wholesale. On a 98 LS the turnsignals are $80 each wholesale, and the foglamps are $135 a side.

So to replace all the lamps on my ES it would be $1,040 just for the parts wholesale. On a 98 LS you'd be looking at $1,110.

Again thats just PARTS, wholesale, unshipped. Then you've got to figure out how to remove them, install the new ones, make sure everything is aimed properly.

OR I could just get the right polish, tools, and polish the ones I have in 30 minutes. So, unless my time is worth $2500 an hour or so its definately better to polish them.

OR you could pay a detailer $150 and he'll do it for you. Still a much better option.

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I like to detail too but detailing a car is not the same as repairing headlights either. Then again sometimes you need to say, who cares.

I will play the other side (you know me). People pay how much for the car and then headlight price is an issue? That is like buying a home and then trying and DIY a subpanel breaker box or try and clean a hot water tank....

But, ya if you have an older car and not worth much, sure it is worth it to clean. Since the lights might be same value as the car.

Your light problem is a little, well, over extreme since if you need to replace all the lights in your Lexus, or any car, get another car.

Plus you know that $1,100 WHOLESALE is now $2500 to your door?

Then gain I do not maintain my headlights and they look new (except for the chips from trucks).:)

Again, you know me.:cheers:

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That still absolutely makes no sense. If you think its worth it to spend over $1,000 and then hours underneath the car trying to get them installed vs buying some polish and a rag and polishing the lamps for 30 minutes...then you seriously need to have your head examined.

Its not about being cheap, its about not setting money on fire and then shooting it through the garbage disposal. Why throw something away and replace it for thousands of dollars when it simply needs to be cleaned?!?! Your analogy of trying to clean a hot water heater makes no sense. Hot water heaters have a usable life. When they reach that life (10-15 years btw) then it makes no sense to try and service them or clean them out.

You're talking about replacing a valuable component when it has not at all reached its usable life simply out of the fact that it physically does not look good. Its like replacing the water heater even though it works fine because it has a scratch on it.

This is the detailing forum. Polishing yellowed headlamps so that they look as good as the rest of the car is part of detailing. It isn't the "just replace any part that gets dirty or needs to be polished or protected" forum.

I like to detail too but detailing a car is not the same as repairing headlights either. Then again sometimes you need to say, who cares.

How is polishing the headlamps any different from polishing the paint? Its simply a part of the detailing process. Does it make sense to wash the whole car and leave the wheels dirty? To polish the car and not seal it?

Then gain I do not maintain my headlights and they look new (except for the chips from trucks).

But you do maintain the headlamps. You wash them, and your car is garaged. Its not an issue if your car is garaged.

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Some people like or enjoy working on cars. Again the bra would do nothing here. I know what I see on the roads daily...

Ps I have cleaned my car and not the wheels. Do it every other wash since wheels start very clean here but paint is dirty due to again highway.

Again this is me since I have yet to see $600 gain another in this enviroment with this product. I know what I see.

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Some people like or enjoy working on cars. Again the bra would do nothing here. I know what I see on the roads daily...

Ps I have cleaned my car and not the wheels. Do it every other wash since wheels start very clean here but paint is dirty due to again highway.

Again this is me since I have yet to see $600 gain another in this enviroment with this product. I know what I see.

I think you have your discussions mixed up. Nobody has said anything here about clear bras. We're talking about polishing headlamps vs replacing them.

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