Headlights

Just be aware that this is a temporary solution. You'll have to reapply polish every 3-6 months to keep the lens clear. The only permanent solution that I know of is to sand the headlight to remove the corroded plastic and then apply clear coat over the top to restore a protective layer to the plastic. There are many tutorials on youtube and online for how to do this.

PS. The plastic cover for your passenger side foglight isn't seated properly and is liable to fall out. You'll want to wiggle it around and push-pull on the plastic grill it's attached to, to get it seated where it should be.

 

I found this at the local Wallyworld. It takes a little elbow grease, but wet sanding the headlights on my 05 made all the difference. Follow up with a couple coats of spray on clear and polish them out. Now I have to aim them back down so I don't get brighted every time I drive at night.

Rust-Oleum 1" Detail Sander Kit - Walmart.com

 

Nice! Post your results if you can. I need to do this on my passenger side headlight as it's older and clouded.

 

Just got an 06 with 200k here are my headlight restoration pics

500, 800, 1000, 3000 wet sanding
Meguiars 105, 205, scratch 2.0, uv protectant




iPhone ?

 

Krylon sells a clear coat with UV protection, it lasts about a year in the florida sun but its a bear to remove and redo..

 

Sanding and uv coating still wears out. The best long term solution is a new headlight assembly.

 

Our 2007's headlights were pretty foggy when we got it in 2019. Washed them thoroughly, polished it with some turtle wax metal polish (any polish will do most likely) and they cleared, mostly. A close up view of the surface shows a very large number of tiny pits and scratches, almost certainly divots from hitting sand and such at speed. If those are filled in with a compound which matches the index of refraction of the plastic pretty well then they are close to optically clear. For the first few years they were waxed but that attracted dirt too quickly. We live in a location that has a lot of dust in the air and not a lot of rain. Since then they have been coated periodically with Nu finish, two coats actually, one right after the other. When they get dingy enough the Nu finish is stripped with some Dawn, water, and a sponge and then they are coated again. They don't look substantially different now than they did in 2019.

Eventually UV damage will get deep enough into the plastic that there will be scattering below the surface. Unlike the surface pits, there is no surface coating that will fix that. At that point there is no choice but to sand it down to clean plastic and apply some form of clear coat. Then continue with the Nu finish over that. Still, 7 years of the current protocol and I have not needed to resort to that. Maybe half an hour of work every 6 months to keep them clear.

I think it is best to avoid sanding for as long as possible because the clear coats consumers can apply do not hold up nearly as long as the ones which were put on in the factory when the headlight was made. Also, if one is looking for a used headlight in a junk yard bring some water to pour on it. If it is washed off and transparent when wet, then it will be OK to use with treatments like those described above. If it is still cloudy when clean and wet then the plastic has a lot of subsurface damage. YMMV.