Soooo, one of my headlights died. I kind of left it for a bit because I am lazy and enjoy avoiding expenditures on things other than food, alcohol, or entertainment.
Well, ironically, in an effort to procrastinate something totally unrelated, I actually motivated myself to sort this problem out.
I drive a 1999 Acura 3.5RL and after establishing that the headlight that died costs $175.00 just for a new bulb (and headlights are best replaced in pairs wouldnt-you-know), I decided a "Bullion Investigation" (tm) was needed. I immediately went online to see what I could teach myself and find a cheaper way of getting this done. This is how I do things.
As I got carried away on ebay shopping for new bulbs at $40 (1/4 of the store price!), I realized the plastic of my headlights looked OLD. The plastic lens cover was cloudy / foggy and really showed the cars age. I decided that if I am going to go to the lengths of learning how to install new headlights, buying them off the internet, and finally installing them, the headlight fixture better look damn good!
I ended up on an Acura enthusiast forum, Acurazine, a great resource for Acura owners. One of the members suggested a "headlight restoration kit" which should be available at a local parts store for $20 and even though this nice guy was from Wisconsin, he was right.
I drove myself down to the "local parts store" aka PartSource - here in Ontario - and picked up a "Permatex: Plastic Lens Restoration Kit". The sales guy was actually really cool. He didn't treat me like a lost-cause when I stated 'I rarely open the hood without supervision', he kind of admired I was taking an interest in the automotive world. Then he said something scary; he wasn't sure how it would turn out.
He'd only sold two: one guy said it was great, the other guy nearly beat him up because it ruined his headlight altogether. He said to follow the directions STEP BY STEP and SLOWLY, infact he said that to me twice. I rarely follow directions, let alone slowly, so I took special heed of this warning.
See how it unfolds below
Before:
Barf
Before Closeup:
In both Before photos, the headlights had been wash/scrubbed and dried!!
The Kit:
Sales Pitch: The Kit itself was really fucking good. I am a total novice and found the directions VERY easy to follow. It also has everything you need, including nifty plastic gloves, so when you are working on your car in the driveway and lots of people are looking you feel like a car surgeon, not a doofus mechanic.
After 10 min of 1000 grit sanding:
Halfway through, now on the 2000 grit sanding:
After polishing, the fresh new look!
Highly recommend it!
This shit did exactly what I hoped it would. I recommend anyone else with shitty looking headlights to do this, your car will look younger and you will feel like a allstar.
Full Frontal:
Thanks for reading, good luck. Will follow up with another automotive moment when I install the new headlights!
