Clouded Headlights

Lorrs33

I bought a 2003 Nissan Micra at the end of last year and I immediately noticed that the headlights were clouded over. I did a bit of searching and I keep hearing about Autosol Metal Polish. I was just wondering if anyone's tried this for removing cloudiness, or if they've tried something else that was effective?

Chimaera

Don't use a metal polish, there are specialist materials for dealing with plastics.

The one I use is called Meguiars Plastix. It's a special polish designed for automotive plastics. If the lamps are not too badly scuffed then this should bring them up ok.

If they are very badly scuffed/scratched, you can still use Plastix, but you'll have to do some prepwork first. Get yourself a few sheets of emery paper of increasingly fine grades: unless the lamps are completely gouged out, 800 should be a good start, then go to 1000, 1200, 1500 and finish with 2000.

For each grade, wet sand the lamps until you get an even smooth finish on the lamps. With the first one, it'll look like you're going backwards, but as you go through them it'll start improving. It'll take about 20 mins per grade per lamp to get the required finish. When you're done with the 2000 grit, give the lamps a good polish with Plastix and you should be good to go.

For maintenance, give them a rub of Plastix whenever you wash the car.

Owen

One of our regulars here did a how-to guide on it. Search this forum and it'll come up.

Cessna_Pilot

Autosol works on faded Jap headlights with a bit of elbow grease.

HJL

There are clips on youtube with people using toothpaste to bring up clouded headlights. Might be worth checking out.

Gregsor

Don't forget warm suddy water.

biko

HJL wrote: »

There are clips on youtube with people using toothpaste to bring up clouded headlights. Might be worth checking out.

+1, it's amazing how many speciality cans/bottles of stuff people buy when many things can be fixed with what you already have in your house.
And if it didn't work all you wasted was a bit of toothpaste.

Lorrs33

Chimaera wrote: »

Don't use a metal polish, there are specialist materials for dealing with plastics.

The one I use is called Meguiars Plastix. It's a special polish designed for automotive plastics. If the lamps are not too badly scuffed then this should bring them up ok.

If they are very badly scuffed/scratched, you can still use Plastix, but you'll have to do some prepwork first. Get yourself a few sheets of emery paper of increasingly fine grades: unless the lamps are completely gouged out, 800 should be a good start, then go to 1000, 1200, 1500 and finish with 2000.

For each grade, wet sand the lamps until you get an even smooth finish on the lamps. With the first one, it'll look like you're going backwards, but as you go through them it'll start improving. It'll take about 20 mins per grade per lamp to get the required finish. When you're done with the 2000 grit, give the lamps a good polish with Plastix and you should be good to go.

For maintenance, give them a rub of Plastix whenever you wash the car.

Where would I get that stuff?

Chimaera

Lorrs33 wrote: »

Chimaera wrote: »

Don't use a metal polish, there are specialist materials for dealing with plastics.

The one I use is called Meguiars Plastix. It's a special polish designed for automotive plastics. If the lamps are not too badly scuffed then this should bring them up ok.

If they are very badly scuffed/scratched, you can still use Plastix, but you'll have to do some prepwork first. Get yourself a few sheets of emery paper of increasingly fine grades: unless the lamps are completely gouged out, 800 should be a good start, then go to 1000, 1200, 1500 and finish with 2000.

For each grade, wet sand the lamps until you get an even smooth finish on the lamps. With the first one, it'll look like you're going backwards, but as you go through them it'll start improving. It'll take about 20 mins per grade per lamp to get the required finish. When you're done with the 2000 grit, give the lamps a good polish with Plastix and you should be good to go.

For maintenance, give them a rub of Plastix whenever you wash the car.

Where would I get that stuff?

I got it in Halfords, but any good car accessories store should have it or something similar I think.