head lights restoration kits

[ray835]

think its time to sort my head lights out as they are now quite cloudy with condensation inside to boot was wondering if its worth wasting money on one of the headlight restorer kits on the market or just a waste of money

[Joesson]

@ray835

Condensation inside the headlights is not something that I've had experience of trying to fix. In my early ownership I was convinced the cloudiness was inside the lens ( it wasn't) and  removed the units from the car and washed them out with, iirc a weak solution of dishwasher tablet , I then rinsed them out with a solution of dishwasher Finish. I then made the mistake, in retrospect, off rinsing them finally with tap water. Of course when they finally dried the limes ale and other products in the tap water left their marks on the inside of the lens. If I were to do that again I would do a final rinse with deionised water, not many £ from Tesco, other Supermarkets, are available. The lights did look somewhat cleaner. That treatment should also serve to remove the condensation.
If you remove the units you will find a small pocket at the rear with the remains of some foam rubber, this I believe was intended to allow air to enter the interior. I replaced the foam with foam cut from Mrs J's ( Scotchbrite)  up sponges.
For the outside I have tried toothpaste and Tcut type product that came with my new daily.
That does remove some of the cloudiness at little cost. You could try that and consider the result against the sure cost of a proprietary abrasive.
Some brave souls have used wet and dry, very wet,  but I am not that brave!
Whichever method you choose, my preference would be to remove the unit from the car, others typically protect the adjacent paintwork with masking tape.

[ray835]

with it being outdoors and temperature changing over the last couple of days has caused the condensation in them this time of the year i usually put the dehumidifier cartridges in the cockpit get a pack of 4 from asda for £5 just coming up to mot time so just need o get rid of the yellowing in the headlights for now until i can source another pair .

[Carolyn]

The kits do the job.  I've dealt with condensation by taking the headlight bub out and using a wide piece of tube and a hairdryer to dry them out.  Worked a treat.

[MrChris]

I had really bad condensation in one of mine, sometimes the simple things work: I just took the rubber cap off on the back of the light, left it on a warm day (okay not many of those at the moment), put the cap back on and it hasn't returned (the condensation that is).

[Dev]

If you use a pad attached to a drill and some polish it should do the job and much quicker.
It depends on how bad they are but with most of these kits they are too aggressive and will take off more material which will bring back the cloudiness sooner. The least aggressive method should be tried first and it usually gets the job done unless they are in really bad shape where they are opaque and badly scratched up. 

[Fin]

I always use the abrasive kits. With a little care, I find that they work great. I usually try to finish with about a 3000 grit paper, and a very fine polish.
I think the most important part of any kit is the UV protector spray. If you don't use that, you will have yellow headlights again very quickly.
It is usually the UV film which discolours and makes the lights look bad.
Like most people, I originally didn't believe that the discolouring was on the outside, it always looks like it's the inside of the lens which has turned nasty (it almost never is though).
If you can remove the units before polishing, you will get a much better finish.