Foggy Headlamp

[guitarsoloist87]

Uh so my passenger side headlamp is all foggy looking. I bought a 3m restore kit thing but now I'm told not to use it because it will only make it worse. I was told to put clear coat over it? I dunno. Any ideas that have worked for you? The headlamp makes my 07 look like a 97. Ewwww.

 

[bigdaddy]

I have a meguiars restore kit. They work great. I detail lots of cars and this works on almost all of them. Is it like faded?, or does it have condensation inside of it? Just make sure whatever you do, wax it afterwards, and if your lights look like that, that means you should probably wax your car as well. No, you should not clear coat it, that would not solve anything.

 

[2008mazda6]

hey. im kinda new at this and i dont own a mazda 3,but i just replaced the pasenger side headlamp with a new one on my mazda 6,and the driver side headlamp was kinda dull lookin compared to my new passenger side headlamp. so i put rubbing compound on it and buffed it out and it came out a lil better. you might try giving that a shot.

 

[Darth Vader]

Rubbing compound is WAY to aggro for this. Use polishing compound in a pinch or buy the proper stuff from Meguiars or similar. You need a buffer for best results. I restored dozens of '80s/90s Ford plastic headlamps with the above method. They were the worst for this stuff.

Is it cloudy inside or out? If it's cloudy on the inside, remove headlamp and swirl a very light bleach and water solution around on the clouded area. Not a bad idea to pop a small ventilation hole to allow humidity inside the lamp to match outside humidity, that'll prevent fogging, if that's what you are referring to.

 

[the intimidator]

i had a 01 focus and i used Novus 1, 2 and 3

 

[pspc_mazda2]

I have done this to all of my customers and friends headlight take 1500 or 2000 grit sand paper with a figure board and lightly scuff them with warm soppy water use dawn or quick detail spray after that use 1500 compound with a buffing wheel at 1800 rpm and then use a thick wax that has teffalon in it to protect them from getting nasty again.

 

[Hank3]

The 3M kit worked wonderfully well for me.

 

[the intimidator]

I have done this to all of my customers and friends headlight take 1500 or 2000 grit sand paper with a figure board and lightly scuff them with warm soppy water use dawn or quick detail spray after that use 1500 compound with a buffing wheel at 1800 rpm and then use a thick wax that has teffalon in it to protect them from getting nasty again.

this works great as well i do it on my f150

 

[Saskatchewan17]

3m and meguiars kit work well. But the absolute best way to solve this is remove the headlight and sand down with a super high grit sandpaper. 3000 or 2500 would work. Sand down a bit and then move down to polishing compound, then buff with a heavy duty swirl remover with a dual action or rotary polisher. Then move down to a lighter duty polish. Finnaly to prevent this from happening again, seal with a nice LSP like meguiar's #21. Be sure to always keep a light coat of wax or LSP on your lights to prevent this from ever happening.

 

[mazdaspeed32007]

Rubbing compound is WAY to aggro for this. Use polishing compound in a pinch or buy the proper stuff from Meguiars or similar. You need a buffer for best results. I restored dozens of '80s/90s Ford plastic headlamps with the above method. They were the worst for this stuff.

Is it cloudy inside or out? If it's cloudy on the inside, remove headlamp and swirl a very light bleach and water solution around on the clouded area. Not a bad idea to pop a small ventilation hole to allow humidity inside the lamp to match outside humidity, that'll prevent fogging, if that's what you are referring to.

i popped mine open a while back and about 1.5 years later ton started to condensate a little. i was thinking about making another vent hole up high and filling it with a vent so nothing gets in. do you think this would solve my problem? i didnt want to do it for whatever reason and never got around to asking. thanks.