Ugly Dull Headlights

[TroyLexus]

Does anyone know how to get the yellow-ish fog color on the outside of dated headlights off ?

Had anyone buffed them out ? if so, what did you use ? what type of materials ?

[djspawn00]

I used maguirs plasticx stuff... it works well and its one step...

[1990LS400]

You could do a search and find several methods of clearing the plastic headlight lenses complete with before and after photos. Some people have used various grades of sand paper from hardware or auto parts stores, wet sanded their headlights and then finished the headlights off with a clear spray lacquer. Others like me have used Crystal View headlight refinishing kits that can be bought at auto parts and discount stores which include the needed sand paper, lacquer and applicators: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...&hl=Crystal

PlastX works pretty well unless the plastic lenses are really trashed. My understanding is that headlight clearing methods that involve using a final clear coat usually last longer than PlastX and hide the imperfections that PlastX can not hide. My headlights refinished with Crystal View look far better than my foglights cleaned with PlastX ... I was too cheap to buy another Crystal View kit to do the foglights.

PlastX seems to work pretty well even if it is a temporary fix. I sometimes think it would be fun to carry a bottle of PlastX and a small towel and do a stealth cleaning of some of the badly discolored headlights I see during my daily walk. If I did, I would clean only one headlight on each car -- wouldn't that be fun? But I'd probably get nailed for vandalism if I tried something like that.

[PilotguyPA28]

I had mine done by the Dealer for $75. Lifetime guarantee.

[13IS250C]

You might laugh at this one, but toothpaste. I did my daughter's Civic with Crest Pro-Health. Did a pretty good job. Not sure how economical you want to be, but this does work.

[LEX-SV]

Wow, the toothpaste worked pretty well I can see above. Must be the polish in the toothpaste.

[crosswell]

I have tried Mother headlight restorer kit and Meguairs heavy duty headlight restoration kit. Both products works great. But Meguairs is the most expensive but works faster .

[dcfish]

You might laugh at this one, but toothpaste. I did my daughter's Civic with Crest Pro-Health. Did a pretty good job. Not sure how economical you want to be, but this does work.

bth_before.jpgbth_after.jpg

Yep, Toothpaste works as well as anything....

[LEX-SV]

Looks good, and minty fresh too.

[LEXIRX330]

Don't forget to floss!

[imgreg7]

Toothpaste will work but the result won't last longer. To me, the 3M kit provides the best result.

[LEX-SV]

imgreg7 - Thanks for recommendation. I have a old Civic GX that has dull headlights.

[LenzClear]

Does anyone know how to get the yellow-ish fog color on the outside of dated headlights off ?

Had anyone buffed them out ? if so, what did you use ? what type of materials ?

I restored my sisters headlight's with this stuff that somebody turned me on to, it worked awesome, It took the yellow foggy color right out of the headlight's fast and left it on the rag it couldn't be easier to use, plus it only cost me under $10 Go to LenzClear.com Best Headlight restore product I ever used.

[LEX-SV]

imgreg7 - Thanks for recommendation. I have a old Civic GX that has dull headlights.

No need now. I got rid of the 2002 Civic GX and replaced it with a 2010 Civic GX. Headlights are very clear.

[VBdenny]

My Corolla lights were faded and I cleaned them a few times and they went right back to dull. I ordered new assembly on Amazon for $61 and put them in. Probably a lot more for some cars though.

[micalexs]

I just did mine..it works!! next time imam use the one with baking soda or whitener lol

[13IS250C]

Glad it worked!

[jamesm182]

I've used PlastX before and got good results.

[Bykfixer]

My headlights were so dull one could not see the light bulb. For the daytime lights that was fine, but at night the frosted lens really cut down the distance of effective lighting. 

I started out using Plasti-X and a microfiber cloth, which helped a lot. Yet a some point somebody had placed a coating of some sort on mine. Factory? I dunno but it was coming off and causing weird patterns in the beam so it had to go, whatever it was. I tried the no sand route with a few products none of which worked. Ordinarilly things like Plasti-X or Mothers wheel polish would probably do fairly well but my lenses said "pffft, got any other bright ideas bucko?"

Stashed in my trunk from another project was an older 3m no drill kit from when they came with 3 discs. First one being 500 grit. Now they have 2 discs, first being 1000 grit. I dry sanded whatever that stuff was with the 500 disk. Uh oh! Now they are really frosted. But the remains of that coating were gone. 

Got out my spray bottle of water and commenced to rubbing the lenses with a new 3m kit. The 1000 grit rubbed up a nice slurry of yellow tinted paste. Wipe that off and by the 3rd rub down the yellow was gone. So then I did the 3000 grit. Low and behold I could see the light bulbs again. Afther the third rub down I could see "made inbJapan" again. Nice! Yet it was no gin clear yet. 

I rubbed on Blue Magic wheel polish and could see light at the end of the tunnel was not a train. Wait about 10 minutes and buff it again and it looked pretty good. Then the last step was to apply the 3m supplied clear coat. They looked about as close to new as they ever will without using a drill. The 3m drill kit is amazing but I prefer to hand rub my headlights as one slip and you have a scratch on your car, even if using masking tape. 

All told it took about an hour and a half to rub down all 4 lenses on my GS300 and get back almost new looking headlights. I considered keeping the DRL's frosted but opted not to. 

Now by the 4th lens the disks were kinda worn so extra hard force had to be applied to get good results. If you look closly, the right side lenses are not quite as clear as the left side ones so I'd reccomend buying 2 of the 3m kits if you don't want to have to use a "scrub" amount of effort. The kit was $10.49 at my local auto parts store.

 

[Avtrill]

Looks great. I will have to give it a try on my vehicle. They are pretty frosted over with a yellow color. I thought about purchasing new housings since my car is older they aren't too expensive if I remember correctly they were about $65 each. I might just save my elbow and get the new ones. 

[Bykfixer]

Welcome to the site. 

If I could fine some for $65 I'd probably do same.

Eh, but then again there was just that sense of satisfaction when it was complete. 

[RX400h]

On 7/28/2021 at 6:37 PM, Avtrill said:

Looks great. I will have to give it a try on my vehicle. They are pretty frosted over with a yellow color. I thought about purchasing new housings since my car is older they aren't too expensive if I remember correctly they were about $65 each. I might just save my elbow and get the new ones. 

New lenses will always look better than a polishing job. However, you may want to research what is required to replace yours. Some swap efforts are not very easy.

I used a Meguiar's headlight lens polishing kit. To me it had the right "ingredients".

[Avtrill]

I hear what you are saying. From what I can tell you have to remove the inside wheel well liner and the grill piece then it's about 3-4 bolts holding the assembly in. 

[LEX200108]

I have used metal wheel polish, and it works fine if the lights are not too bad. The 3M Headlight Restore for me worked the best so far. 

[Bykfixer]

The other day I was in Harbor Freight and saw they have sheets of 1000 and 1200 grit sand paper. Now with a 3m kit the 1000 grit disk is good for about 2-3 headlights. If you have 4 of those sheets of 1000 grit you could ensure your 3000 grit disk can be effective on all 4 lenses. 

They are with the sanding tools there. I wanna say 4 sheets was $7.99 but not sure. I was in there for a watch back press.