How to Clean Foggy or Yellowed Headlights

With time, your newer cars headlights will become foggy or yellow. This is generally caused by environmental pollutants, soap and wax residues, and more. This reduces the amount of light your headlights project to the road, bakes the residue on the lens, and even reduces the life of the lamp.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A Soft Cotton Cloth
• About 2 Table Spoons of Baking Soda
• Water
• Window Cleaner
• About 5 Minutes of Your Time

1. In a small bowl or container, mix the two table spoons of baking soda with enough water to make a slightly runny paste.

2. Dampen your soft cloth. You want it wet enough that it doesn't absorb the water out of the baking soda paste but not enough to make the paste runny or the cloth dripping wet.

3. Dip your cloth in the paste and scoop out enough paste to cover a quarter to half-dollar sized spot on your headlight. Buff this spot until it is clean. Obviously you will still have the past on there, but as you buff, you will see the lense coming clear.

4. Continue applying paste and buffing until you've buffed the entire surface. You're paste should be a aweful brown, grey, or yellow color at this point.

5. I use a foaming window cleaner as it seems to make clean up much easier. You can, however, just use water from the hose; only if its above freesing. Using plain water when it's below freezing will result in extreme difficulty in washing away the baking soda.

6. Repeat 1-5 on each headlight, tail light, or any other plastic light on the vehicle.

Tips & Warnings

• You may need more or less paste. Baking soda is cheap, so if you don't have any, buy some of your local store's brand. It should cost between $0.50 and $1.00
• Foaming Window cleaner can be purchased at your local Wal-Mart in the automotive section. Windshield cleaner is the same thing as Window cleaner, except it foams up and delays running.
• This may take a couple of applications, depending upon how much build up. Don't be afraid to add more water or re-wet your cloth to reuse the paste already applied.
• DO NOT USE TOOTHPASTE! Toothpast contains hard abrasives that are fine for your teeth but may/will scratch the plastic lenses!
• Make sure the headlights are free from dirt. Any dirt, sand, or other debris, will put permenant scratches in your plastic lenses. Wash the vehicle prior to polishing the lenses.