toantran99

Two thumbs up for this kit. Pretty easy to do. Took me about an hour to get these results.

Viper6

Looks good... I've been debating doing this on my 05... seems like there is a coating of some kind and it appears to be breaking down around the top of the lenses... the fronts are ok except for some pings from road hazards... did using this kit take this protective coating off the lense for you?

toantran99

Im pretty sure it did since you have to sand it.

REV-01

iTrader: (13)

looks better however it is no where near what it used to be. i found that people don't take care of the headlights from the beginning then usually this is what it will ended up with.

64impalaSS

Looks good, did the kit some with sand paper? Where did you by the 3M kit and how much?

99LSBrad

You can get it at Autozone for $19.99. I am planning to buy today and try it tomorrow. Mine look worse than Toantran's. Much cloudier towards the top. I'll try posting some before and after pics.


youtube vid

Kansas

I've tried a variety of headlight lens restoration products on my own and other's cars and have had the best results with the Crystal View kit - also about $20 at discount and auto parts stores and described at http://www.myheadlight.com/ .

It involves hand wet sanding with two different sand paper grits, polishing with a supplied compound and then finishing off with a lacquer like clear coat. It is VERY important to follow the instructions with Crystal View - it's not for those who like to "wing it". The clear coat step must be done precisely and finished before it starts to set up - particularly on a hot day when overdoing the clear coat application can cause streaking. I wouldn't use Crystal View if the temperature was much over 80.

The results though are very nice but practice makes perfect - I was way to gentle in sanding the first time I used one of these kits. I refinished the headlight and foglight lenses on my 00 LS400 a couple of weeks ago in about 30 minutes and they now look like new to me. I refinished them in 2008 with Crystal View and did it again mainly due to scratches caused by someone ramming a shopping cart into the right side headlight. The Crystal View clear coat filled in the scratches and I can no longer see them.

SargeISF

iTrader: (6)

Wolfgang has given me the best results.

monkeybutt

I actually used a combination of the two kits. The 3M kit is superior to hand sanding as you use various grit sanding and polishing pads which afix to a power drill. Yeah you got to be a bit careful as the drill action is circular rather than orbital, but you will probably be too gentle on your first try anyway - OP I bet you could get your lenses a bit clearer by being a bit more aggressive. I've tried a few manual sanding kits and it was really hard to reduce the pitting in the lenses.

The clear coat of the other kit gives some protection to slow eventual fogging and a noticeable notch up in clarity over just sanding and polishing.

toantran99

I was pretty gentle when sanding but I already bought another kit from Amazon to restore another headlight on my 2002 Acura TL-S

Dutchie101

The clear coating is a urethane film.
The urethane breaks down over time, or even some polish over run from panel polished can degrade it quicker.

You want to sand it completely off, the 3m kit is great, then re coat with a optical coating like Oligo Silane.

In Australia we have a product(kit) called Glassylite that contains Japanese formulated Oligo Silane for final coating.

There was also another product that i could not get anyone in the US to send to me, its a clear urethane spray can, that sets up in UV light or even out in the sun.
Ah thats right: http://www.renulite.com/

Incognito8

I used the Turtle Wax kit (6.99; I'm a cheap bastard), which comes with three sanding grits, water spray, and a "clarifier" (plastic polish). I got pretty good results, although there is what appears to be a little condensation on the inside of the lens.

I also used the clarifier on some of the internal plastics (instrument cluster and climate control) and got good results there, too.

64impalaSS

How many cars can you do with one kit?

B43088

Rev-01 u said people don't tend to take care of their headlight, besides soap and water is there anything else to do to prevent it from looking cloudy

mewhee

For those of you who don't have quite the severity of cloudiness in your headlight covers or are wary of taking sandpaper to them, there's a less invasive product out there which worked for me. I had a a slight haze/cloudiness on one or two areas of each of my headlight covers and got out our Novus #2 cleaner to see if it could 'renew' the original showroom clarity. Since the products main purpose is cleaning plastic scratchs, yellowing, and haze, I gave it a whirl and it made both covers look brand new.