This is my first time attempting to polish a headlight lens.
I’ve been wanting to polish the headlight lenses on my girlfriend’s VW Beetle for a while. I had the day off and I noticed that Advance Auto has some of the 3M kits on sale. I used kit 39008 today and here are the results.
I chose this one because it had the drill attachment. It was on sale for $17.99 marked down from $22.99.
http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/webapp/...rm=3m+headlight
This kit includes:
-500 grit discs
-800 grit discs
-3000 grit polishing pad
-Foam pad and polishing compound
On this car you pull out the headlights to replace the bulbs, so I popped them out an inch or so to help protect the paint and masked everything off.
The 500 wasn’t quite cutting it on the really course, badly yellowed parts, so I ended up wet sanding with some 400 grit sandpaper I had first.
Overall I’m pretty happy with the results for the price I paid. The first headlight (the one shown) turned out really well. The second one doesn’t look quite as good. There’s some minor hazing and fine scratching, despite really polishing it in the last step. I think I may have needed a little more time with the 800 grit on that one. I could go back and repeat the last couple steps if I want to.
I also waxed them to hopefully slow some future hazing.
I’ve been wanting to polish the headlight lenses on my girlfriend’s VW Beetle for a while. I had the day off and I noticed that Advance Auto has some of the 3M kits on sale. I used kit 39008 today and here are the results.
I chose this one because it had the drill attachment. It was on sale for $17.99 marked down from $22.99.
http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/webapp/...rm=3m+headlight
This kit includes:
-500 grit discs
-800 grit discs
-3000 grit polishing pad
-Foam pad and polishing compound
On this car you pull out the headlights to replace the bulbs, so I popped them out an inch or so to help protect the paint and masked everything off.
The 500 wasn’t quite cutting it on the really course, badly yellowed parts, so I ended up wet sanding with some 400 grit sandpaper I had first.
Overall I’m pretty happy with the results for the price I paid. The first headlight (the one shown) turned out really well. The second one doesn’t look quite as good. There’s some minor hazing and fine scratching, despite really polishing it in the last step. I think I may have needed a little more time with the 800 grit on that one. I could go back and repeat the last couple steps if I want to.
I also waxed them to hopefully slow some future hazing.