Hazy headlights are an issue. Aside from making your car look cheap and worn, regardless of its actual price, they can also prove to be a pretty big problem with nighttime visibility. I’ve seen many people opt to buy new headlights, which is often a pretty expensive solution which is completely unnecessary. There is a cheap and quick fix that resolves the issue completely and it is a DIY thing – polishing.

How to polish your headlights?

Necessary equipment:

Masking tape

Sandpaper

Polish paste

Microfiber cloth

1000-, 1500-, 2000-, 2500-, 3000-grit sandpaper

Towel

Car wax

Headlights polishing in steps

1. Wash the car or at least the part adjacent to your headlights. This will remove dirt from the surface. You can also wax the area, but it is not a must.
2. Mask the area around headlights with masking tape. You can even remove chrome parts, if there are any, since chrome can be affected negatively during the procedure
3. Put some polish paste on the headlight and use the cloth to polish in circular motion. Make sure you don’t touch the paint of the adjacent surfaces that you don’t want polished. Depending on the size of the headlight and its condition, the process can last about 10 minutes per headlight. This will remove some of the haze from the headlights and it might actually be enough to make the headlights as good as new. However, this is rarely the case, so you’ll most often need the following steps.
4. Take the 1000-grit sandpaper and soak it in cold water for 5 – 10 minutes. After that use it to sand the headlight. Make sure you sand in straight strokes, back and forth. Again make sure you don’t sand the surfaces around the headlight. Also, keep the sandpaper wet. Every now and then use a towel to dry the surface and see how consistent your work is. Then wet the surface again and get back to sanding. Sand until you remove all of the irregularities that have accumulated on the headlight.

   

5. Get to the finer sandpaper – 1500-grit – and repeat the process, but this time do it at right angle to the one you used for the previous section. Again, dry and clean the surface every now and then to see the progress. You are looking for an even, consistent look.
6. Keep using finer and finer sandpaper and repeat the actions at right angles until you reach 3000-grit and you are satisfied with the results.
7. Take the cloth and polish paste from the beginning and polish the headlight again to remove the smallest of scratches. After this is done, make sure you clean the paste from all surfaces thoroughly.
8. Now you can wax the headlights. This is not obligatory, but it will make your headlight look even better and it will also keep it such for longer.
9. Remove the masking tape and admire your work. Congrats, you are an expert headlights polisher.