I have a S2000 with a dull headlights lenses. Wonder if you can tell me the best way to clean and restore it ? Thanks in advance.

 

Welcome to the forum, your first post in 8 years!

Youtube has several good videos on restoring the lights. The best way is the most labor intensive. You will wet sand with finer and finer sandpaper (in cross hatch pattern) and then polish with a DA polisher (foam pad and glass or plastic polish). They will look great but degrade again as there is no UV coating. I recommend a film (maybe thinner than Xpel) and that will keep them looking new.

 

There's only one way to do them correctly. Obviously you're starting with something like this...



The only way to repair that is to remove that top layer of flaking plastic. These have to be sanded down like so...



A good "DA" sander is what you want to use 600 grit, 1000 grit, 3,000 grit if I recall. You then follow it up with buffing, like you're buffing a car. Really, that's exactly what you're doing, wet sanding and buffing. They make a little buffing wheel that attaches to the end of a hand drill, use that with a wool pad. It will look great at this point...but it won't hold up, you have to use another product. There was something mentioned in the post above mine, I don't know anything about it. The best thing you could use is clear coat for painting cars, it has the necessary UV protection and it finishes the lights beautifully. Apply that, 1,500 and 3,000 with your DA, buff again. You should end up with this...



OR, you can take your lights to a body shop and they'll do this process for around $200 for your set. They're already going to be painting something so a quick shot of clear isn't going to be putting them out anything. It's the labor of the sanding, buffing, clear, sanding and buffing again. There's not much in material cost.

If that clear comes in an aerosol can, which I'm sure it does, this would be a fairly easy process for a person to do themselves.

 

There's plenty of ways. Only counting how to properly do it...

Option 1:
Wet sand from 800 to 1000 to 1500 grit.
​​​Use Spraymax 2 part urethane headlight clearcoat.
(For god's sake mask the whole car)
Wait to dry.
Wet sand with 2K, 3K, 4K, compound with a machine. DONT burn thru the clear.


Option 2:
Wet sand from 800 to 1000 to 1500 to 2000 to 3000 to 5000.
​​​Compound with a machine.
Wrap in 3M (or similar) high quality film


I like option2 because of the protective film and because I can get the lights looking like straight up polished glass.

Obviously you can apply film after option 1 also....but Option 1 doesn't come out as clear.

You can't do it properly with a stupid kit.
You can't use the stupid clear coat they sell at stores.
Ceramic coating is not going to work semi permanently.
All of that is futile. Don't waste your time.

 

This is not a product endorsement but wanted to share my recent experience using Chemical Guys Headlight Restorer and Collinite No 845.

First off, my headlights were not in terrible shape. They were mostly clear but with some light hazing on bottom half of lenses.

First tried to apply the Headlight Restorer product only with a microfiber towel. Shined the lights up a bit but wouldn’t remove the tougher haze. No sanding done with this approach.

Second try I decided to use my DA polisher and some 2500 grit wet sanding paper. My steps were as follows:

1. Washed lights
2. Used clay bar on lights
3. Wet sanded only the hazy areas of the lights with 2500 grit
4. With DA polisher applied Chemical Guys product to an orange medium cut pad (two rounds of application on each light hand buffing residue with microfiber towel after each application)
5. With DA polisher applied Chemical Guys product to a white light cutting pad (applied 2 times on passenger side light and 4 times on driver side light, which was in worse condition; again hand buffed out the product with a microfiber towel after each application)
6. Used the 1800 rpm setting on DA polisher for all product applications
7. Hand waxed lenses with Collinite No 845 and hand buffed with microfiber towel

My overall takeaways are:

1. Chemical Guys Headlight Restorer was a good remedy in my situation. Very pleased with the results.
2. A DA polisher was required to remove the light haze and multiple applications were required to produce the clearest and smoothest results.

Unfortunately I didn’t take any before pics. The attached after pics tell the story. For the keen eyed members who blow up my pics, you’ll notice some small micro cracks near some of the edges of the lenses (That issue is discussed
elsewhere in an S2Ki forum). Those do not buff out.

 

Adding a clear film offers the added advantage of mitigating small chips and scratches, in addition to UV protection.

 

I taped off the lights carefully and then wet-sanded using progressively finer sandpaper, alternating between horizontal/vertical passes for each -- basically followed the YT tutorials. This is the most time-consuming and boring part of the process, but likely the most important to the end result.

Then followed up with a plastic polish (Meguiar's I think) applied with an inexpensive foam pad attachment for my rotary drill. I do have a DA polisher, but in this case I trusted myself with the easier-to-manage drill. I just kept the pressure light and the speed low-med. DA definitely a safer option, though.

Once they were all polished and squeaky clean, I applied PPF.

 

Did mine last week with Griot's Ceramic Headlight kit and really impressed with the results. Basically oxidation wipe, 1000 grit, 2000 grit and 3000 grit and then their ceramic coating which levels it off. Amazed that this how they come out with zero polishing.