Restoring Headlights with 3M Kit

[EricTheCarGuy]

I’ve used other methods to restore headlights and they worked, but I don’t think they worked as good, or as efficiently as this kit. What are your thoughts?

Topic

[David]

I was surprised to see the kit doesn’t come with a UV protectant/sealant of some sort to protect the fresh surface of the lenses – usually the oxidation you see is UV damage – when new, headlights have a coating on them to prevent UV damage, but when that fails the lights start to haze/oxidize. I think there are some kits that have a sealant, but no idea how well it works. Once you have had to sand through the coating, the lenses will haze again much more quickly than when they were new. One thing to try would be waxing the lenses when you wax the car, as most modern waxes have UV protectants in them.

[EricTheCarGuy]

The polishing compound may have some protectant in it but I’m not sure.

[Walt jr]

I’m glad to see the power kit comes with a foam pad to dissipate heat. A coat of paint sealant will work fine for UV protectant after sanding and polishing lenses.

[Hokiedad4]

We have used these same kits on several of our cars. They’re fantastic!

The last car I did was my daughter’s 2004 Civic (coincidentally). I did one extra step that helped a lot. After using the P800 disc and before using the foam polishing pad, using a 2000 grit sandpaper wet by hand really made the last couple of steps much easier.

I’ve attached before and after pictures for reference.

[Sean]

Yeah I have been driving around with bad headlights for a long time 😛

Finally saw this and went: “you can use it with a DRILL!?”

Immediately went out and did it on my car: filmed it too (btw kit comes with protectant not another package of compound. It’s not UV protectant I don’t think, its a “synthetic wax”)

Now I looked around the forums for a forum rules area (to see if I could link to my YT video) and I can’t find them anywhere.
So If you want to see the video, in my profile here on ETCG I have linked my YT channel.

[Jay Swenberger]

I just used this product on my 2003 Subaru with 240+k miles. The headlight covers were completely fogged over and the resulting light projection was extremely dim.

Following the treatment, the lens covers were completely clear and I could easily see the reflector details from a few feet away. I haven’t driven at night so I can’t speak to an improvement in road lighting, but there is no doubt there will be a significant improvement.

As others have mentioned, it would be nice to have a UV protector included but that is nitpicking at this point.

Thanks for the tips,
Jay

[Author]

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