Restoring Headlight Assemblies Experiment

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Forgalspop

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I decided to do an experiment the other day.

My wife’s 2013 Subaru plastic headlight assemblies were getting somewhat foggy from UV light and being sandblasted from road grit. Also my 1993 Ford Ranger plastic headlight assemblies had gotten very yellowed and foggy. The Ford Ranger much worse than the Subaru Outback.

Over the years I have tried various methods of restoring plastic headlight assemblies with less than stellar results.

I ordered a product Meguiar's G12310 PlastX Clear Plastic Cleaner & Polish that is supposed to be great for restoring plastic headlight assemblies and also Flitz multipurpose polish that can be used on metal and plastic. I have used Flitz on metal parts through the years with great results, but had never used the Flitz on plastic.

I used Flitz on one headlight assembly and Plastx on the other side on the Ford Ranger first and then repeated the process on the Subaru. I used a buffing pad on a cordless drill to apply both products. The Flitz did an amazing job, the Maguire’s Plastx not so much. I ended up using Flitz on the assemblies I had used the Plastx on to obtain the clarity that Plastx did not achieve.

My wife drove to work yesterday before daylight and texted me about how much brighter her headlights were. She was amazed.

So, I can recommend the Flitz and can’t recommend the Maguire’s Plastx product.

Hope someone finds this info useful.
 

Forgalspop

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I should have taken before and after pictures, but here are a couple after pictures.
 

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Forgalspop

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I have used Flitz for many metal polishing projects including polishing the insides of reloading dies, polishing gritty trigger assemblies, rifle chambers. The polish is a non-aggressive polish that works. This is an American Company that makes products to work. I appreciate good products that do what they say they will do.

Link to company website: About - The History of Flitz
 

Dumpstick

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"polishing" headlights is a temporary fix. You will have to do this over and over. To restore headlights properly you need to sand the headlights to remove the damage and then apply UV clear coat. There are kits available that provide sandpaper, sanding discs and the UV clear coat.
Yep, gotta do the UV protectant. It will extend the life of the polish job. Need to re-coat the protectant every 6 months of so, which I always forget, so I have to keep grinding away the lamp lens.
 

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