Car Headlight Plastic Cleaning - Haze Fogging Yellow Removal

[Nifty]

The headlights on my 2001 Hyundai Elantra are sickly opaque!

Over the years I've tried a bunch of stuff to clean them. Some have worked better than others, but nothing seemed to really clean them super well and/or last very long.

Today I had another go at it and thought I'd start documenting my progress.

First I cleaned the lenses with soap & water.

I then started digging through my shelf of tons of misc. car cleaning / polishing products and grabbed a handful I thought I'd test out.

First up was "TurtleWax Rubbing Compound - Heavy Duty". I applied it liberally with my fingers all over the lens and then put a terry cloth over my hand sander and worked the lens.

I then applied "Meguiar's PlastX" and worked that in, but only used my fingers and elbow grease.

At this point things looked a LOT better. I'm going to leave it as it is and see if it lasts very long.

Here are some before / after pics:

 

[Hinotori]

I'm interested in how well it stays.

I'm to the point of paying to have the plastic abrasive polished. But that's headlights and fog lights and it adds up.

Friend of ours once used turtle wax on his windshield with a buffer wheel. It was very nice for about 9 months. took care of the little minute scratches and made the heaviest rain just sheet off. This was long before they came out with RainX

 

[Denim Deb]

Nifty, would you like another vehicle to try it out on? I'm sure my truck wouldn't mind.

 

[TanksHill]

I just saw a post on this somewhere. Wait for it..... .


They used tooth paste!!!

I imagine it was the pasty kind.
G

 

[Marianne]

We used to sell kits for this through the company that we work for. But what we do here is use 1000 grit sandpaper w/ water to get the worst of it off, then 1500 grit with water, then buff with a good rubbing compound. A finish polish by hand will help protect it longer.

 

[Hinotori]

The oil change place down from us uses the sandpaper method. I'm thinking about having them do it. They have a warranty on it for a time frame as well. With our wet and muck, you find out really fast if the stuff works or not. I've tried one of those polish kit things. Within a few days it was obvious it didn't actually fix the light, just waxed or oiled it.

 

[Marianne]

You're right, if it's just waxed or oiled, it won't really take care of the problem. You need something with some abrasive qualities to remove the haze with a minimal amount of scratching to the lens.

 

[moolie]

That looks great!

Hubs is planning to try a few things on our 98 Ford Explorer to see if he can get the haze down, I'll try to remember to post when he gets around to it.

Having a minor blizzard at the moment that is undoing our recent spring melt, so it will likely be a while before he is out working on the vehicle again...

 

[Corn Woman]

Need to try this with my daughters 2003 Grand Am. She was backed into in a parking lot and 1 headlight was replaced. The other one looks terrible.

 

[Beekissed]

Looks good!! I did the same thing but used toothpaste...the white kind. It turned out just like the before and afters in the pics. The lights had been cleaned previously with Krud Kutter but not right before using the paste...just when we first washed the car back in the spring. I was impressed with it...just one application and it was clear as a bell!

Still clear now and that was in the summer when I did this. I think it works better with some types of headlights more than others, particularly those that are fully smoked...I think those have a cheaper grade of plastic?