One of my headlights has got a bit tatty looking slightly yellow tinge sort of tarnish to it, which just washing does not remove. I have heard that sand paper can clean it up to look like new again how true is this?

 

Look up 'headlight restoration'. There are kits out there for this.

 

Thanks Alchemist will do

 

Do not sand your headlights! There is a thin coat of clearcoat that you need to help keep on there. If you sand your headlight with one of these kits (like the 3m restore etc) you will end up with a bare plastic headlight. Sure it will polish up temporary, but it will get way worse then what it was after a few months because no clear coat.

Best way that I know if the your clear coat is still good is to use mild cutting compounds. There are products out there that can cut it. I like to use professional stuff a product by meguairs m105 then m205.

If your headlights were really bad you can use a fine sand paper like 2500-3000 grit and lightly sand then use compounds to polish it up.

If your clear coat is to badly destroyed, you can take your headlights to a body shop and they can sand and spray clear coat on them.

 

Yeah sand the headlights, they're going to look like those headlights you see on other cars once in a while and wonder how the hell that even happened.

 

^^^ Yes after time (3-4 months) your headlights will look like that if you use one of these sanding headlight restoration kits.

Notice the clear is almost completely stripped off. The only thing that made the headlight shine before was the compounds that had fillers. What they do is they fill in the scratches and after time the wax/compound breaks down and exposes the scratches.

That headlight could still be repaired, needs more sanding and spray a clear coat.

 

I'd sand couple times but after time its still will become yellow again bro ! Just spend $50 to spray a clear coat on ur headlight then u done for good ! U dont have to worry about it will get yellow foggy again !