I know this has been asked a lot before and I did search, but I have a question that I didn't really see answered. A lot of people said to just use plastic cleaner stuff or the Never Dull polish that is in the team-integra how-to thread, but won't the headlights become hazy again after a week or two again? Will sanding it with 2000 grit and using the plastic cleaner leave them PERMANENTLY clear, or what about 2000 grit plus a buff w/polish and plastic cleaner? I want something that won't have to be redone every week. TIA


Modified by Hatch_R at 4:16 PM 4/24/2007

 

When polished, it won't have to be done again anytime soon. Just make sure you read up on varoious DIY threads to get the process down. Depending on how hazed your headlights are, you may or may not need to wetsand them. I bought a kit from somewhere (don't remember ATM) that has a mandrel that goes in your electric drill with two velcro pads, one is a felt polishing pad, one is foam. It also came with a polishing compound, and when used correctly, produces amazing results. My parents have a Neon that I tried it on first, and it worked quite well.

 

I've probably read like 15 different DIY threads but they all say different things and most of them seem to not be very permenant. A lot of them require more wax all the time to keep them clear. I was thinking about getting one of those kit things though, and try that out on some trash headlights before doing it on my own.

 

brass brembo works

 

First of all, what is that? Give some details, and only if you have used the stuff or seen it firsthand, not if you 'heard' about it.

 

i just used a little turtle was rubbing compound. no removing the front bumper and its worked well for me for the past month.

 

To the OP: I think you might be confusing waxing with polishing. Polishing actually sands a tiny bit of the surface away using an abrasive compound (or sandpaper, same concept), meaning it permanently gets rid of the haze. I'm not saying it'll make it look completely new, but from personal experience, plastic cleaner does make a HUGE difference. It won't come back anytime soon, either, because the roughness causing the haze has been sanded smooth.

Some folks will wax it _after_ polishing. Needless to say wax is not an abrasive, but rather a coating, so it does wash off over time and will need to be reapplied.

 

Alright so between polishing, sanding, and buffing, which do you guys recommend (or maybe a combo of 2 or all 3)? I asked about it being permanent because I've seen a lot of threads where people sand or polish their headlights and then have to always wax them to keep them shiny or else they look like they're hazed over (not like old headlights look, but like plastic looks when you sand it down and leave it like that).

 

use toothpaste. squirt some on a rag, rub it in and the wipe off with a wet rag.

 

Mother Aluminum mag polish mang... Works wonders and the lights looked great after a year.

 

Never dull.

Rub on for a while, let it sit for a few minutes, whipe off.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Jahz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Never dull.

Rub on for a while, let it sit for a few minutes, whipe off.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Doesn't this only last until the stuff wears off?

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by aj223 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">use toothpaste. squirt some on a rag, rub it in and the wipe off with a wet rag. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I tried that and maybe it wasn't the good kind of toothpaste but it didn't do anything.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mac_24_seven &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Mother Aluminum mag polish mang... Works wonders and the lights looked great after a year.</TD></TR></TABLE>

So you just get a clean rag and this stuff and rub and that's it? I think I'm going to try this stuff or the Meguiar's stuff.

 

Post some close-up pics of your headlights so we can see how bad they are.

Mine had some pits from road debris that no polish alone could have gotten rid of. I wetsanded my lights, going up to 2000 grit (which left an even haze on the lights), and then polished with Meguiar's dual action cleaner polish (DACP), using my Porter Cable random orbital buffer. Then I applied clear headlight protector film over them so that it wouldn't get more pits in them. The film has been on there 2 years and you can still barely even tell anything is on there unless you look REALLY close.

I ordered a pre-cut headlight film kit from http://www.stickercity.com

*edit* I have tried wetsanding and polishing by hand before, and the results were nowhere NEAR as good as polishing with a machine.

Polishing with a machine gets results like this:

 

^^^^^^^^
Use the Meguires polish w/an air powered (or even electric) drill with a lil buffing pad on the end.

Call it a day. your lights will look BETTER than they did new

 

depends on how bad the lights are. The two examples I posted would never have ended up as good as they did if I had not wetsanded prior to polishing.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PatrickGSR94 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">depends on how bad the lights are. The two examples I posted would never have ended up as good as they did if I had not wetsanded prior to polishing.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Wetsanding them first makes a huge difference... start out with something like 1200 then work your way up 1500 1700 2000 then use anytype of polish with a buffer and they will look good as new.

I use to buy 1 piece headlights for DA's that were yellow and looked like crap for 70 bucks, put about an hours time into them and turn around and sell them for 150

 

Cool well I'm going to get some sandpaper, wetsand them, and get some polish and one of those little drill attachment buffing pads. Thanks for the help guys. I do have some pretty weird-looking pits in my headlights but hopefully sanding them will help take them out at least a little.

 

It's been about a month and mine are still perfectly clean. Using neverdull.

 

What exactly is Neverdull? How does it work? Does it just coat the headlight with some kind of wax or does it actually polish the surface, or what?

 

dude im in the navy, we use never dull to polish all brass stuff on the boat, i think its a polish, i comes in a wet form or in dry form, wet form it comes in a little bottle and is kind of like any other polish, the dry type comes in what looks like cotton ***** but once you start rubbing it on something it start to take all the crap off, well for brass it works wonders and we do it by hand so witha drill to buff it i bet it would look sweet but dont quote me on that cause i never even thought about that for my lights. well i have a spare set of light for a 98-01 teg and im going to try to wet sand one and polish with mothers mag polish and the other i will try the never dull, i will post the results later on when i get a chance.

 

^Cool, PM me when you do that if you don't forget. I have a crappy broken headlight (at least I do if my parents didn't throw it out) that I'm going ot try wetsanding on and polishing and see how it works out before I mess with my own headlights.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by aj223 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">use toothpaste. squirt some on a rag, rub it in and the wipe off with a wet rag. </TD></TR></TABLE>
lol thats the ghetto way or use rubbing compound...no problem my friend...

 

I use 2 cleaner. One from Kregan and Never Dull. I tried the Kregan stuff on one headlight and Never Dull on the other and the Kregan stuff owns Never Dull. But I use them as a combination... Kregan then finish it with Never dull. **** looks like new headlights everytime!

 

I wanna know more about Neverdull, how does it work?

 

I wetsanded mine and then used mothers plastic polish came out looking pretty good. Prolly would of came out better if i had a high speed buffer. If i can find a little buffer for the electric drill i may try it with that to see if it comes out better.