Thursday, August 28, 2014

Restored my car's headlamps with Meguiar's Headlamp Correction Kit

Been itching to do something with my car since the time I changed those tiny little bulbs. The things that really stood out was my yellowing headlamps. This seemed to be a typical problem for older cars like mine and it looks rather bad. The blur surface of the headlamps reflect a portion of the light coming out of the bulbs. Changing out the headlamps for a new set was not really something I want to do because it is likely to be quite expensive and its COE is expiring in a few years time anyway. If your situation is like mine, it may be more cost effective to buy a headlamp restoration kit.

I bought the Meguiar's Headlamp Correction Kit which, I suppose is for "medium duty" cleaning up of the headlamp since they sell a more comprehensive "heavy duty" Headlamp Restoration Kit for really cloudy headlamps. I couldn't bring myself to by the more expensive heavy duty kit when it contains almost similar items to the medium duty.

Medium Duty Correction Kit:
1x microfiber cloth
1x bottle of PlastiX cleaner and polishing cream
1x sachet of headlamp protectant 
3x double sided sanding pads (from rough to smooth)

Heavy Duty Restoration Kit:
In addition to the Medium Duty kit, it has
1x handgrip for sanding pads
1x polishing pad for attaching to drills
1x bottle of PlastiX instead of the sachet

Honestly, after watching youtube videos on headlamp restoration, I think my headlamp falls under the "heavy duty" category as it is yellow, cloudy and scratchy looking. I tried it for myself and it worked rather well. The only drawback was the amount of time it took me to shine it up and my aching fingers from sanding the headlamps.

I took this picture after completing the restoration sequence for one side. Sanding out all the oxidised plastic took really long and it felt as though the entire depth of plastic was oxidised.


Almost an hour in, I managed to remove much of the yellow oxidisation layer, leaving an evenly frosted look.


 Finally, after 2 hours, I managed to restore my headlamps! Felt really proud of the significant improvement done to them. For a kit that costs $43, I'm quite happy with it.


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