Headlamp restoration surprise success

[NealCS]

My Vantage is 11yrs old and I had it resprayed but the headlamps were scratched and pitted and looked like they were cloudy on the inside - it really let the car down:




A couple of people said they were too far gone and would need replacing, so with nothing to lose I tried the Autoglym Headlamp Restiration kit - ASTONISHING results:






You go through four grades of sanding paper/disc and then a polishing paste. The first stage is terrifying and requires patience:



You will see that some areas of the lens seem to have a harder surface, you have to keep going to get through this surface:


The trick is to clean the dust off the disc and the lens every few seconds - as soon as you go over the Perspex powder at high speed with the disc it becomes a liquid again and solidifies on both lamp and disc. The first stage took nearly an hour. Then the next stages are quick, with the final (messy) Polish taking just minutes:



The results speak for themselves - as-new headlamps for £25/side! (I had to use two kits as the coarse grade paper clogged too much to do both - but perhaps less scratched lenses would be easier).

Hope that’s useful to someone.

[NealCS]

Thanks bignoise I’ll try that- I was planning to wax them - is it better to NOT do that before applying the film do you know?

[NealCS]

Aha Jester that must be the part that was tough to remove - it only remained on about 1/2 the lens - I’ve ordered the protection film and will add to the post once applied. (Any tips appreciated!)