Yesterday was a busy day. One of the tires on my wife’s car had a slow leak. I visited one place (BJ’s Wholesale) right after they opened and was told I would have to wait two and a half hours as there were 4 cars ahead of me. I didn’t want to sit around for 2 1/2 hours as I had other stuff to do. So I went to another place (a Bridgestone/Firestone place) and they got me right in. It cost me $10 more which sucked. Oh well. While I was waiting for them to fix her tire, I looked around. I found some stuff called Ever-Wear Headlight Restoration Kit. I asked how much it cost, and was told they didn’t sell the stuff. But the service cost $100. I asked why, and he starts telling me it was labor and how they have to remove the lenses, etc to do the insides. This didn’t seem to make sence to me that they would have to do the insides of the lenses.
After the tire was fixed (it had a nail in it), I visited Advance Auto Parts and found they sold a product called CV Headlight Restorer made by Crystal View. It was $20. Still seemed a bit pricey. I came home and did some searches. I found some pages that swore that you could use toothpaste. I read other places saying you could use toothpaste, but that it wouldn’t last. I searched for reviews for the CV Headlight Restorer. The reviews were all very good. From the stuff I read online, there was a bunch of stuff in the kit. So I headed back to the autoparts store, and bought the CV Headlight Restorer. I didn’t have time to do it right away, so last night I had time.
I found a video from the company that shows how to use the CV Headlight Restorer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGMBGQUMtOo
I used the stuff mostly like the video showed. The CV1 stuff kept drying out, so I was using a mister water bottle often.
The process took a while. But it turned out pretty well. If you look up close, I don’t think they looked like “new” but step back a little and they look close. I think the results could have been much better with practice. There were a couple spots that could have stood to have a little more sanding. I bet a shop that does these often, can get fantastic results. But I think my headlights turned out pretty well. If you take your time, you will get some good results. You need to be carefull while sanding not to go off the lens and scratch the paint of your car.

Before:

After:

Posted by Rob in Whatever on August 4th, 2008 |