I completed the clear light mod on my car a number of months back. When completing this mod I noticed the headlight lenses were not in the best condition, and it is something that has bothered me ever since. Here are a couple of pictures of my offside headlight showing the oxidation and damage to the lens -
As you can see this lens was pretty scruffy. It is hard to capture the scratch, but trust me it looked pretty bad in real life! The near side lens was better, but again it had marks and oxidation that let the look of the car down.
I did some research on how to restore the lenses, and it was then I discovered the 3M headlight lens restoration kit -
I found some reviews on this kit which were very positive. Basically the kit comes with a drill attachment and 3 different grades of sanding disc, a polishing disc and some polishing compound. You use the attachments with a standard drill to sand and polish the headlight.
I am a complete novice when it comes to this sort of thing. I have never used a machine polisher before and I have never used wet and dry to restore paint etc. Although I was nervous in using this kit I decided to take the plunge as the headlight lenses were really letting the front of the car down.
I ordered the kit, as well as some protective tape direct from 3m. This lot came to about £28 including delivery (I ordered loads of tape though as I would use this in the future). I also ordered a water spray bottle as you need to spray water on the lens during stage 3 (about £3 from ebay). This bits arrived a couple of weeks ago and today I got round to using it.
Here is a picture of all the bits. I have labelled what discs are used at the different stages (the drill attachment is hiding behind the stage one disc). You get 5 stage 1 discs, 4 stage 2 discs, 1 stage 3 disc and 1 polishing pad.
I gave the headlights a quick clean and then taped up the headlights. This picture shows the offside lens taped up ready to go -
I then attached the disc holder to my drill and started with the stage one pad. I was really nervous about doing this as I was worried about messing up the headlight. I made a few passes with the stage one disc. I applied enough pressure to compress the sponge on the drill attachment by around 50% (you'll understand what I mean if you give this a go!). After a few passes the headlight looked like this -
I then moved onto the stage two pad and after a few more passes it looked like this
It is hard to tell from these pictures but the scratches at this point were much finer. I then ran a few passes with the stage 3 pad, this time spraying the lens and pad with water as recommended on the instructions. This is what it looked like after a few more passes.
As you can see you get a bit of frothing at this stage. After a wipe with a cloth the lens looked like this
As you can see at this stage the lens still looks a bit cloudy. At this point I had a close look at the lens to check for any areas that still had scratches or oxidation etc. I then repeated a few passes with the stage 2 and stage 3 pads until I was happy the marks had been removed (please note some deep stone chips will probably still remain, you don't want to take too much out of the lens).
Once I was happy I then used the stage 4 pad to polish the lens and complete the restoration. When you polish the lens you will probably notice the odd mark here and there. I repeated stages 2, 3 and 4 until I was happy that all the marks had been removed. I then completed the near side headlight in the same way.
Here are some pictures showing how the lenses look now -
I was really impressed with the results I achieved with this kit. The nasty scratch and oxidation has been completely removed. Some of the deep stone chips remain, but the appearance of these has been greatly improved. Sure a professional detailer will be able to achieve a better result, but when you consider this is a £20 kit used with a standard drill the results are excellent. As stated before I am a complete novice and I was really nervous about taking this on, however it is a really straight forward process.
It is amazing how the head lights can make the front of a car look tired and scruffy. I was really surprised to see how much fresher the front of the car now looks, the front end has really been transformed. I am really pleased I took this on, what a difference an hour and £20 can make!
As you can see this lens was pretty scruffy. It is hard to capture the scratch, but trust me it looked pretty bad in real life! The near side lens was better, but again it had marks and oxidation that let the look of the car down.
I did some research on how to restore the lenses, and it was then I discovered the 3M headlight lens restoration kit -
I found some reviews on this kit which were very positive. Basically the kit comes with a drill attachment and 3 different grades of sanding disc, a polishing disc and some polishing compound. You use the attachments with a standard drill to sand and polish the headlight.
I am a complete novice when it comes to this sort of thing. I have never used a machine polisher before and I have never used wet and dry to restore paint etc. Although I was nervous in using this kit I decided to take the plunge as the headlight lenses were really letting the front of the car down.
I ordered the kit, as well as some protective tape direct from 3m. This lot came to about £28 including delivery (I ordered loads of tape though as I would use this in the future). I also ordered a water spray bottle as you need to spray water on the lens during stage 3 (about £3 from ebay). This bits arrived a couple of weeks ago and today I got round to using it.
Here is a picture of all the bits. I have labelled what discs are used at the different stages (the drill attachment is hiding behind the stage one disc). You get 5 stage 1 discs, 4 stage 2 discs, 1 stage 3 disc and 1 polishing pad.
I gave the headlights a quick clean and then taped up the headlights. This picture shows the offside lens taped up ready to go -
I then attached the disc holder to my drill and started with the stage one pad. I was really nervous about doing this as I was worried about messing up the headlight. I made a few passes with the stage one disc. I applied enough pressure to compress the sponge on the drill attachment by around 50% (you'll understand what I mean if you give this a go!). After a few passes the headlight looked like this -
I then moved onto the stage two pad and after a few more passes it looked like this
It is hard to tell from these pictures but the scratches at this point were much finer. I then ran a few passes with the stage 3 pad, this time spraying the lens and pad with water as recommended on the instructions. This is what it looked like after a few more passes.
As you can see you get a bit of frothing at this stage. After a wipe with a cloth the lens looked like this
As you can see at this stage the lens still looks a bit cloudy. At this point I had a close look at the lens to check for any areas that still had scratches or oxidation etc. I then repeated a few passes with the stage 2 and stage 3 pads until I was happy the marks had been removed (please note some deep stone chips will probably still remain, you don't want to take too much out of the lens).
Once I was happy I then used the stage 4 pad to polish the lens and complete the restoration. When you polish the lens you will probably notice the odd mark here and there. I repeated stages 2, 3 and 4 until I was happy that all the marks had been removed. I then completed the near side headlight in the same way.
Here are some pictures showing how the lenses look now -
I was really impressed with the results I achieved with this kit. The nasty scratch and oxidation has been completely removed. Some of the deep stone chips remain, but the appearance of these has been greatly improved. Sure a professional detailer will be able to achieve a better result, but when you consider this is a £20 kit used with a standard drill the results are excellent. As stated before I am a complete novice and I was really nervous about taking this on, however it is a really straight forward process.
It is amazing how the head lights can make the front of a car look tired and scruffy. I was really surprised to see how much fresher the front of the car now looks, the front end has really been transformed. I am really pleased I took this on, what a difference an hour and £20 can make!
