Hi guys/girls: I finally made time to buy the 3M headlight polishing kit from my local AdvanceAuto. ($17.99 USD).

My headlights were in terrible shape! Especially living close to the coast, the salt in the air here tends to "fog up" the lenses even faster. Here are the pics of before, during and after.

1) Lights in Bad shape, popped the hood.
2) Taped off to protect paint. Followed procedure, which includes cleaning, power-polishing with 3 varied grits of paper, and final cleaning. (I did not seal.)
3) After
4) After-close up

Total time for me to complete all 4 headlights was about 2 hours, including prep time. Makes the front end look new again!

 

My wife's previous 2000 Lexus RX300 headlights had a tendency to cloud up on their exteriors as well. Every six months or so I used a bathroom cleanser called SoftScrub to polish up the lenses to like-new condition again. The bleach and mild grit contained in the cleanser removes all traces of discoloration in just two or three minutes of hard scrubbing with a damp washcloth, then drying and polishing with an old diaper. You can buy SoftScrub at your local Wal-Mart for less than three bucks per spray can. One can will last you for years....

 

Hi Jon, yeah, softscrub is probably good for maintenance, but mine were so bad that no amount of elbow-grease was working. (I tried softscrub, and other over-the-counter lotions that claimed to clean lenses.) The only thing that worked on my badly fogged headlights was the kit and use of a drill as a rotary sander.

I'll keep the softscrub in mind for maintenance going forward. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

LOL!! Am I the only one that caught this?

What's up with the diaper? Is there like a secret material for better polishing?

 

Car-knowledgeable folks have been using old cloth diapers for decades as a cheap, safe, and easy polishing and buffing tool. Old worn-out cotton material does not scratch metal or glass surfaces and is easy to launder. I have a stash of a dozen or so old diapers that are probably more than 30 years old. They polish car parts, clean windows, dust furniture, and do hundreds of other odd jobs as needed. They just get better with age....

Go out and spend your hard-earned money on the fancy new microfiber towels if you want to. I'll just stick with my old diaper stash....

 

...word.