How to Clean Foggy or Yellowed Headlights

Dim, yellow headlights are bad news for everyone on the road, not least of all for the one who has them.

Late-night television is chock-full of commercials for miracle wipe-on headlight restorers. While purpose-made restorers will help, a true restoration job goes quite a bit deeper to address the root flaws in your vehicle's headlight covers. True headlight restoration can take less than an hour, and it may be the best investment in automotive safety and aesthetics that you've ever made.

Things You'll Need

• Masking tape
• Razor blade
• Rubber gloves
• Soap and water
• Sandpaper, 400-grit, dry
• Sandpaper, 1000- and 2000-grit, wet
• Soft polishing rags
• Lens polishing compound

Instructions

1. Wash and dry the car using common dishwashing detergent. The detergent will strip any wax from your car's headlight covers and ensure tape adhesion. Dry the car thoroughly. Mask off any body panels or chrome trim around the headlights with masking tape; the sandpaper you'll be using can easily damage nearby panels. Use your razor to trim the tape to fit.

2. Sand the headlights with 400-grit sandpaper, then wash the headlights. Now, lower your 1000- and 2000-grit sandpapers into a bucket of clean, soapy water and allow them to fully saturate for about five minutes. Wet the headlights and sand them in a horizontal plane (side-to-side) with the 1000-grit sandpaper. Wash the headlights, then sand them again with the 2000-grit paper in an up-and-down motion.

3. Wash and dry the headlights. Apply a bit of plastic polish to your polishing rag and polish one of the headlight covers in a side-to-side motion. Allow the polish to dry while you polish the other lens. Buff the dry polish off the first lens with a clean, dry, soft towel. Check for clarity. If the lens isn't as clear as you would like, re-polish it in an up-and-down motion. Repeat until you're happy with the results.

4. Wash the car down with wax-stripping detergent and re-wax it. Your car's acryllic headlights will need a coat of wax to seal and protect them; synthetic wax works best for acrylic lenses, so buy some synthetic wax for the light covers even if you're using natural wax for the rest of the car.

Tips & Warnings

• Resist the temptation to polish your car's headlight lenses in a circular motion, the way you would your car's paint. Auto body paint is much harder than acrylic headlight plastic, so it won't show swirl marks the way that plastic does. This is especially true when the headlight comes on; trust it, you will see every single swirl mark in the plastic once those lights illuminate them from the back. Sanding and polishing side-to-side and up-and-down will still leave marks, but they'll be much harder to see in the finished product.

• 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.

References

• "Auto Detailing: The Professional Way"; James Joseph; 1992
• "Automotive Paint Handbook"; John Pfanstiehl; 1998

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish