my headlights (sc4) have always been something ive neglected to thoroughly clean, so today i decided to wet sand them with soap and water. i did this to one lense and when i dried it off, it looked really hazy. this was due to all the tiny scratches from my 600 grit wet sand paper. most of the dirt was gone, but this looked terrible. there was still some dirt left in the tiny grooves left by the sand paper.

immediately i thought, 'well sh*t, time for a new housing'...then i remembered i had a slew of cleansing products that are actually meant for the paint finish. the first thing i did was take a bottle of Mother's Prewax Cleaner to it, which actually got all of the rest of the dirt off (my white terry cloth towels were turning a rich brown), and about 75% of the haze. however, the housing still wasnt as clear as my other lense (and that lense had only been washed with soapy water and a sponge at that point). then i decided to take some turtle wax scratch&swirl remover to it. i went over the housing twice, and that got rid of all but the smallest of the sand paper grooves that were still there. i washed the housing down once more with plain water and a sponge, and now its sparking like new. i then took the prewax cleaner to my other headlight and was amazed - ive never seen my headlights THIS clean and sparkly

i knew it was recommended to take nothing less than 2000 grit wet sand paper to my headlight in the first place, but all i could find was 600 grit at my local stores. i guess the point of this story is to reinforce the notion NOT to use a lower grit wet sand paper on those housings, BUT that prewax cleaner actually does a great job of cleaning off headlights - much better than soap and water or other household cleaners. this process worked great on my fog lights too

 

Anytime you wetsand, you have to follow up with a compound or polish, its a given, even for plastic headlight lenses.

If you start with 2000, you might get away with using a fine polish, but if you go to a coarser grit of paper like 1000 or 600, you'll definitely need a rubbing compound followed up by the finer polish most likely. Ive done many lexan headlight lens in my time as a detailer, and it is pretty easy to make them all look close to new. Discoloration on the INSIDE of the lens is another matter.

But yeah, good advice for the uninitiated.

 

bump...

 

i did that the other day with wetsand. thanks for the write up, now i can fix my problem with the fine scratches