Did the deed today. Used the 3M Ultra Headlight Restore kit. I was not looking forward to it and have been putting it off. The arrival of all of my Stedi LED upgrades today spurred me on to do the headlight resto before I fitted the new LED's.
When I got this car last month, the headlights were yellow. I parked under a tree and got sap all over the paintwork so being a lazy shit I took it to my local carwash for a polish, they must have put some polish on the yellow headlights too as it came back without the yellow headlights but the lenses were still dull and had marks and what looked like dribble lines down them.
I started at about 3.30 in the afternoon, blue skies but it was about 14 degrees and blowing wind. I parked it up as close to the garage as possible to get out of direct wind and commenced the job using my Drill on low speed, supposed to use high speed as I read after I finished
It was a prick of a job as the headlights have all sorts of angles as it bends around to the indicator. Started with 500 dry, then 800 dry then finished with 3000 and used plenty of water on the 3000. The 500 & 800 took a bit of material off and I used a microfibre cloth to wipe it off the lens and clean the discs as I went. Went thru 4 x 500 and 2 x 800 & 1 x 3000 discs. Obviously these came in the 3M kit but I lost a few of the 800's in the wind.
I put the first clearcoat on at 4.50 and applied the second clearcoat at 5.20. The clearcoat is simple to apply in wipes. By this time it was dark however the headlights appear to be sparkly new in appearance, will see tomorrow when I start to do the LED upgrade if I get the time.
Note that 3M have a number of different headlight resto kits from a basic kit with just the discs to my Ultra with discs and a clearcoat to a Heavy kit for yellowed headlights. Choose the kit to suit you but I think Ultra if faded and Heavy if Yellowed. I chose 3M after I watched a bunch of Youtube reviews and 3M consistently came out in the top recommendations. I bought mine on Amazon, about a week delivery. Link is above. My wife works for 3M and forgot to tell me they have a staff shop open 1 day a month so I probably could have got this a lot cheaper than the $48 I paid if they have it in the shop, doh!