Having sanded, buffed and polished my 2001 VW Jetta’s yellowed/dulled plastic headlight lenses twice in the past 18 months, I was wondering if there is a ‘UV clear-coat’ product that should be applied to extend the surface life of the lenses? I have read that there are some UV clear-coat products that need to be cured with a UV light; that would be too much of an expense. The 3M lens kit worked very well but it did not instruct the used of a finish coat.
You can buy after market headlights on ebay cheap. I just replaced my 99 Camry’s headlight lenses and they even came with new bulbs.
I too have replaced my elderly headlights cheaply from eBay. New bulbs and all. Check into it.
You should use a product such as Meguires Plastix on a regular basis to clean and polish lenses. Then they won’t yellow to begin with. It only takes a couple minutes.
Thanks for the input. Meguires Plastix is on my shopping list.
One other option is to polish your headlights, then put on a protective film. I haven’t tried it, but is seems simpler than replacing them:
I bought a headlight from eBay once - and it was so bad that I sent it back. The fit & basic design were right. But the quality of the reflector was so poor that they didn’t make anything of a beam, and certainly couldn’t be adjusted. The angle of the bulb socket was also off. Imagine just sticking a light bulb on the front of the car - it was sort of like that.
The trouble with that is that you learn very little from feedback. Mostly what you get is “super fast shipping!!” - and stuff like that. Its really impossible to tell what you’re going to get in terms of quality. They might look the part, but flip a coin for performance. I find it to be sort of like buying shoes online. I gave up on that too.
I do use and recommend Maguiars - and it is easy. Just rub them down & buff w/ every oil change or something like that.