My little commuter car is developing cataracts. It's an 05 Prius that has a film over the headlights that has begun to discolor pretty bad. I picked at it with my fingernail just to get an idea of what I was looking at and it feels hard and securely secured to the cover.
I could try a mechanical approach (try getting a blade under), a thermal approach (heat gun) or a fiscal approach (buy new ones).
any other option? Which would be the best to start with?
Since most of the jobber polishing kits (3M, Maguires, etc) start with fairly aggressive sandpaper on a foam disk attached to your hand drill, I would bet you'll end up sanding that film right off most of the headlight. Then you work your way up into higher grit numbers and eventually switch to polish. It will probably take an hour or two per side. It's definitely worth it.
Definitely tape the paint around the perimeter pretty heavily, or better yet pull the headlights out of the car if that's not too hard.
The UV protectant coating on the plastic lense is what you are seeing. With enough UV exposure the coating itself is damaged and becomes hazy. There are inexpensive polishing kits you can use to polish the lense. The problem is without the UV coating the plastic lense will quickly become hazy again. There may be a way to recoat the lenses with UV protectant after you polish them. Last time I looked into this the available products didnt really work very well but that was a few years ago.
Wet sand, then polish, then clear coat with high YV resistant clear. Easy as pie!
Or scrub them with toothpaste if you prefer easy as gas station pie.
I wet sanded my lenses which had been been scratched up badly by a previous owner of the car. It was like they took 320 grit to them for about 20 seconds and then quit; the car had 30k miles on it when I bought it so I don't know what they were trying to do but I digress. I think I started with 1000 grit sandpaper and then moved to 1500, wet, with a lot of wiping down and re-wetting with water. Then I used whatever polishing kit was cheapest at the autoparts store and used auto finish rubbing compound. Then polishing compound. I then sprayed on Rustoleum high-gloss clear rattlecan paint on the newly polished lens surfaces. A year later and they still look pretty good although the finish has chipped a little; this spring I plan on polishing them down again with just some compound on the restoration kit drill-mounted buffing pad and spraying on another coat. If I have to do this every couple of years, I'm okay with that, as the costs are really low and it'll take maybe 30 minutes to do the pair.
You might see what new lights cost. They would have been something over $200 for a pair on my car and they seem like a hassle to replace with fasteners that cannot be accessed without removing the bumper cover.
I used steel wool on mine. Started with coarse finished with fine. I sprayed "totally awesome" as a lubricant. I sprayed the lenses with a clear coating.
Are these HID lamps or Halogen Lamps.
If they are the cheaper Halogen Lamps they run about $55 each via Amazon. Just know that lamp assembly replacement on a '05 Prius requires that the front bumper cover be removed. One headlamp bolt is hidden on the side behind the bumper cover and one headlamp bolt is hidden under the grill portion of the bumper cover. Not a "hard job" and much as it is time consuming with lots of small plastic fasteners to remove.
More specifically, you need to remove the fasteners where the bumper cover meets the inner fender cover at the wheel well then you need to remove all the fasteners up near the radiator cover. There is no need to remove the fasteners where the lower bumper cover meets the under belly tray/lower spoiler/aero.
Given the need for bumper cover removal, I would start with a sanding/polishing kit and see what the results are like.
The headlights on my 05 GTO were pretty bad, but I was able to clean them up by first wetsanding then polishing them. Failing that, I can't imagine that replacement headlights for a Prius are that expensive. I've replaced both of them on my daughter's 07 Focus and they were about $40 each from RockAuto.
Get a decent polishing kit and do a Product Review for us!
Pulled my headlights to work on them. Polished (600, 800, 1000) with wet-or-dry (wet) and then wiped down with prep-all.
Coated them with catalyzed high gloss clear acrylic and they still looked great a couple of years later when I sold the car.
I think the clear was this stuff.
To use the polishing kits and ideas, I need to get the film off first as it is what has turned black. Once that's off I am hoping a non-abrasive polish will suffice to remove any adhesive.
I am willing to do the work to pull the headlights off but once I get the film off I'll know if I need to.
jfryjfry said:To use the polishing kits and ideas, I need to get the film off first as it is what has turned black.
And I believe that the standard polishing kits start with rough enough sandpaper that they will get the film off for you.
I'm sure I'd get through it eventually but it is a good 1/16" thick. Unless impossible, it seems more prudent to remove and then examine the surface.
I figure there is a good chance that the lenses underneath are in great shape.
If I fail to remove it, I'll have to resort to trying to sand through it anyway!
Fair enough. 1/16" is remarkably thick. Good luck! It may just be easier to invest a few bucks and a few hours in new or used units.
I see an interesting line on the corner of your front bumper. That curved line. I wonder if when your car was new if the dealership sold the buyer a "clear bra" type product. Sample:
I wonder if that service also covered the headlamps? And, here we are, 15 yrs later, that clear ain't so clear. The glue looks to be holding so even if you get the plastic off you might then have to fight the glue residue. How much time do you really want to have into this project?
$100-ish bucks solves this whole problem...replace.
I have don a ton of headlight sanding/polishing and fixed some truly ugly stuff, but if that is a film and it doesn't want to come off easily... I'd honestly just replace them. I'm sure it's POSSIBLE to get it off but if it's fighting you the effort/return ratio favors installing new lights imo. I've done the bumper off when i restored the headlights on my old 07 Prius and it's not bad.
Side note to the clear bra idea: I wonder if getting it off would reveal pristine headlights underneath? I'm a huge fan of these plastic razor blades:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076BBW1WM
Same format as a standard single edge razor blade but made of plastic so it won't scratch and cut plastic and other soft materials. You can use them to pull films off of things. It's still labor intensive but not as bad as using your fingernails. Follow up with goo gone (or my favorite knock-off, Goo D Solv R, haha) to get the adhesive residue off.
The plastic razor blades will come in handy again some day so your net expenditure will be time and one or two of the blades and an ounce of goo gone.
If the polishing doesn't do it, RockAuto has cheap new headlights. Being new, they look better than old polished headlights. But being from low cost suppliers, they don't hold up as well as OEM. And the reflectors inside tend to be less carefully shaped than OEM, so the light pattern may be affected.
You'll need to log in to post.
