A few weeks ago I ordered this 3M Headlight Renewal kit from Amazon. But I’ve been reluctant to use it for a couple of reasons:
- I was afraid to mess up the headlights worse than they already are.
- I’m lazy. I figured it would take 2 hours or so for each headlight.
Last night I finally bit the bullet. And you know what? It worked. Of course it took 3 hours each, but we went from this:
to this:
Basically you just sand the heck out of the lights slowly moving through multiple grits of sand paper, plus some rubbing compound (all included in the kit). You attach them to your drill and then sand until your arms fall off.
We did a non scientific test by parking the car in the driveway and shining the lights on the garage door. The right side (which had been polished) was about twice as bright as the left side (which had not). I’m guessing they won’t stay clear as long as they did the first time (10 years), but I’ll be happy if we get 2-3 out of the new polishing.
Man, I did that once to the Crown Vic; I just didn’t have the patience for it. But it does look good!
Yeah, I had to put the portable DVD player on the hood of the car. Then I played movies I know all the words to. That way during the brief times when the drill wasn’t making a ton of noise I could check out the movie, know what was going on, get a brief rest and go back at it. I “watched” The Princess Bride, Spaceballs and Office Space. In that order.