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Headlight restoration?

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9K views 20 replies 10 participants last post by  Nonstop 
#1 ·
I went to Walmart and picked up the ~$15 3M drill-mounted sanding/polishing restore kit. Did not end well. The headlights on the 2011 I just picked up had a slight, slight fog to them. Enough that I felt it was affecting light output. I figured it'd be best to tackle the problem now, than deal with it down the road when it's worse.

I followed the instructions. The only potential mistake I made was using way too high of a speed on the drill... I assumed higher speed = better uniformity. There may have been a few spots where the plastic had heated up too much because there were small splotches on the lens where water was not wanting to cling to during the final sanding stage, but I don't think it's anything that couldn't be fixed. I spent over an hour on the passenger side.

By the time I buffed it with rubbing compound, it was no better than when I started... maybe a little worse. I went back to step 1 and started over, with slower speeds. Same result. Looking at it the next day compared to the driver side, it is certainly worse.

I am going to take it to a professional... well, hopefully someone that knows what they're doing. Only decent place around me appears to be Ziebart. I'm sure they'll do the sanding process again, but hopefully with more steps between grits, and with better equipment. They had better be re-applying UV sealant as well, otherwise it's going to go to crap again.

Has anyone else had their headlights done? Any advice? Here's what mine look like right now...

 
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#3 ·
High speed is a no-no when dealing with plastic. You can even imbed the polishing compound in the plastic.
Hopefully you put down good masking tape and then covered that tape with duct tape to protect the paint.

My problem with the kits is they don't contain enough different grades of polishing compound, because they are aimed at overly optimistic rookies with no experience in polishing plastics. You can do much better with very fine tripoli, rouge, and tin oxide, but you have to really really clean your buffer head between each or use separate heads.

And at the end of it all, you can get new headlights for a lot less hassle.
 
#4 · (Edited)
In hindsight, should have done more research. Polishing compound wasn't even present. 500 grit, 800 grit, 3000 grit, and rubbing compound with a applicator.

Ziebart quoted me $75 for a wet-sand restore, claiming 90%-100% clarity restored. Followed by $75 for a clear film application, lifetime guarantee, to prevent oxidation in the future. I'm going to do it just because this is my rainy day/winter vehicle and it seems to make sense.

I don't think I embedded anything in the lens since there was no polishing compound. Hopefully they can sand out whatever damage I did with their more "advanced" process. I liked overheated the plastic in a few small spots, but nothing is actually visible when looking at the lens so hopefully it's not permanently screwed.

New headlights would be over $1,000 and just do the same thing eventually. Weird too since its a 2011... Our 2006 Commander and 2009 Aspen seem to have clearer headlights than my GC.
 
#5 ·
Just a follow up... Ziebart was not able to restore my headlights much at all, even the one that I didn't touch. They weren't happy with the result and didn't even charge me for it. It doesn't look worse, maybe only slightly better... but I opted for protective film over the lenses, because 1. whatever protective factory layer was on is now gone, and 2. it should prevent further haziness, but maybe not.

The oxidation could be on the interior, and who knows why. I did notice the headlight boot covers look like shit... pretty insecure. And a lot of listings for used WK2 headlights from '11-'13 seem to be hazy too. A design flaw I think...
 
#7 ·
That's the before picture, so I'll take an updated one to show what they look like now. If there is a difference in brightness between the passenger and driver sides, it's hardly noticeable. I drove around last night and didn't notice a difference, and pulled up to my garage door and the output from both sides seemed about equal. However, the light output is still not very bright. Great coverage, but not bright. My thought here is that the original bulbs are still in the vehicle from 6 years ago when it was built, with 142K on the clock. Over 4000 engine hours, and the bulbs are only rated to 2000 hours, with brightness still decreasing before that figure.

I'm sure the haze effects light output somewhat... it has to. I just hope I caught it in time and it doesn't get worse. I'll be replacing the bulbs next week. I'm also going to use my camera to take extremely short exposures to see if it can see a difference in brightness between the two.
 
#13 ·
Interesting... I've used Flitz to polish a 1911 barrel before but never thought to try it in plastic.


On past vehicles that I've done this on I always did wet-sand (by hand) 800 through 2000 grit then followed up with Meguiar's Plast-X and they turn out looking brand new. One word of wisdom with sanding on plastic, each progressive grit used should be sanded perpendicular to the previous grit to ensure you are getting complete coverage. Using the Plast-X with a powerball or similar buffing wheel is the best way to achieve the proper result.
Well, I ended up taking the Jeep to Ziebart, a company that does a lot of different vehicle care and modifications... detailing to sunroof installs. They offer headlight restoration and say they typically have great success with it. They could not improve my headlights much at all. They wet sanded as much as they were comfortable with and the lenses were smooth as could be... so I'm guessing it's oxidation on the inside somehow. They applied clear film over the lens to protect it in the future, but my light output is definitely suffering somewhat. It's not terrible, but not great either. I just hate the idea of dumping $500 into new headlights just for a bit more brightness... I might have to explore some kind of option to make the foglights better.
 
#12 ·
On past vehicles that I've done this on I always did wet-sand (by hand) 800 through 2000 grit then followed up with Meguiar's Plast-X and they turn out looking brand new. One word of wisdom with sanding on plastic, each progressive grit used should be sanded perpendicular to the previous grit to ensure you are getting complete coverage. Using the Plast-X with a powerball or similar buffing wheel is the best way to achieve the proper result.
 
#15 ·
I've heard of this a lot (not to restore but add lights, etc.) but have never tried it. My concern is breaking the mounting clips. Almost all the used lights on eBay show broken mounting clips. Plus, if it's oxidized on the inside, I'd have to get the inside of the lens film protected as well.
 
#19 ·
New OEM headlight housings? Doesn't seem possible... if so, you got a steal!

I think these headlights are defective by design. I see no other way that the oxidation could occur on the inside of the lenses on both sides, unless there were a problem with design.
 
#21 ·
There are Non OEM aftermarket housings in the base halogen format for $100-200 and they look great with some risk as to how well they're sealed or they'll hold up finish wise, but for that price per pair it can be worth a chance.

Fo the HID housings I haven't seen any aftermarket OE style housings, but.. Theres at least one aftermarket "upgrade" that caters to the HID lights. Another option is to buy a cheap aftermarket or used OE light in great shape and swap the lenses, it's easier than you'd think and you control the seals.

If you cleaned the inside I don't think I'd apply a clear film as the contamination is different than the outside
 
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