Preface: I am well aware that is ill-advised, both here and elsewhere, to attempt to polish headlight lenses. We know that there is a coating over the polycarbonate that, once breached, will cause the headlight to haze right back over in the short term. Having just replaced the RH fixture in my Prius (the LH unit was obviously replaced by a PO due to a minor shunt), I had the dead headlight to play with.
Having said that... if you are unfamiliar, the "clay bar" is a substance used by auto detailers to remove impurities in paint. From what I understand, it contains a very fine abrasive suspended in a "clay" that's really some sort of plasticy play-doh substance. In normal use, it is rubbed over a car's paint, using a "lubricant" which is generally not much more than very slightly soapy water.
Well, with nothing to lose, I polished the indicator light portion of the good-as-dead headlight. It came out... not bad. Certainly way better than the part I left untouched. Is it good as new? Absolutely not! The next phase of the experiment will be to leave this fixture in sunlight for a few months to see if it hazes back over.
There are a ton of variables in any hazed-up headlight fixture. The best solution, always, is to replace the fixture with a brand-new OEM unit, which is what I actually did. But it seems possible that in the case of my car, the hazing was really superficial and this extremely light polishing was enough to get it in much better condition. Time will tell.
Having said that... if you are unfamiliar, the "clay bar" is a substance used by auto detailers to remove impurities in paint. From what I understand, it contains a very fine abrasive suspended in a "clay" that's really some sort of plasticy play-doh substance. In normal use, it is rubbed over a car's paint, using a "lubricant" which is generally not much more than very slightly soapy water.
Well, with nothing to lose, I polished the indicator light portion of the good-as-dead headlight. It came out... not bad. Certainly way better than the part I left untouched. Is it good as new? Absolutely not! The next phase of the experiment will be to leave this fixture in sunlight for a few months to see if it hazes back over.
There are a ton of variables in any hazed-up headlight fixture. The best solution, always, is to replace the fixture with a brand-new OEM unit, which is what I actually did. But it seems possible that in the case of my car, the hazing was really superficial and this extremely light polishing was enough to get it in much better condition. Time will tell.
