pj8708 Posted September 25, 2011 Share Posted September 25, 2011 Received this How-To video today showing step by step instructions on how to polish and restore those cloudy/foggy headlight lens. Thought I'd post for those of you "diy'ers" and for those doing future searches on the subject. It does come up often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1990LS400 Posted September 25, 2011 Share Posted September 25, 2011 I've noticed that local repair shops charge $75 to $100 to restore headlight lenses. As Blake showed in http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=53683&st=0&p=344940&hl=+crystal%20+view&fromsearch=1entry344940 , a Crystal View kit works nicely and does not require a rotary electrical tool. The headlight lenses on my 00 LS were almost opaque and in much worse that Blake's before I refinished them in 2008 - the attached photo shows how the driver side looked afterwards and is also in the above thread. Hard to believe that the lens was so fogged up that I could barely see the chrome reflector behind it. Lexus headlights - at least mine - have a urethane-like coating. When you sand the finish away, you remove this protective coating. What they don't do in the video Paul provided is to reapply the protective coating. All they do is use a polish. Why? Maybe they want you to bring your car back in another year or two to have the process repeated. The Crystal View kit and some other kits have a urethane-like coating that is applied in the final step of the restoration process. But even with the coating, the fix isn't necessarily permanent even if Crystal View comes with a life-time warranty. The passenger side headlight lens was badly scarred a few months ago when someone scraped it with a shopping cart. So ... I refinished both headlights and this time also the foglights with another $20 Crystal View kit a few weeks ago. Both the headlights and foglights look like new again. I'm particularly amazed at how much better the foglights work since I thought their lenses were scarred beyond repair - but they now look like new too and put out light that is actually useful on dark rainy nights. It took me less than 30 minutes to restore the headlights and foglights with a Crystal View kit - no additional tools are needed except a water spay bottle and paper towels. I used painters tape to make sure I didn't scatch surrounding surfaces while sanding. Don't be too gentle when sanding headlight lenses -- you want to get all the deteriorated finish off them. It gets easier to restore lens after some practice. And if you use a kit with a urethane final finish step, do the restoration process on a fairly cool day and in the shade. This stuff dries out fast and sets up quickly. The Crystal View website is http://www.myheadlight.com/ There are probably other good products but this works so well I haven't gone looking for anything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cduluk Posted September 25, 2011 Share Posted September 25, 2011 eek... he made that a lot more complicated than it needed to be! Personally i wouldn't have started with 600 grit. Starting with 1000 will work just as good, going up to 1500 and 2000 before polishing with 3M's ultimate compound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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