The headlights on my sons Fabia mk 1 are now somewhat milky in appearance. It looks like its the outside of the plastic lens that affected. Whats the easiest safest method to restore them to their original clear condition.

I am thinking of trying some fine rubbing compound - or is this too drastic? Am I right is thinking they are made of polycarbonate?

Edited 27 June, 201016 yr by xman

dont know if it would work or not try just heating them up with a heat gun, just a thought mind you but u never know i would just get some new lenses

How much are new headlights?

Machine polishing will sort it

I've seen pics on here where somebody actually sanded them clear!!!

Using super, ultra, mega fine sandpaper... I was very surprised that this could be done...

Looked brand new when the guy had finished doing them.

Having read grr666's post I'd go with that. The other thing to try is something like meguiar's plastx (could maybe do the sand paper and use the plastx polish to finish off).

Edited 27 June, 201016 yr by anewman

Menz Power Finish on a 4 inch menz orange spot pad, DA set to speed 4.

Here's how we did my son's 1.4MPI.

1. go over with 1500 wet sandpaper, with plenty of water.

2. then finish off with a plastic lens polish.

It turned out great, good enough for 30 mins work.

We used a 6inch rotary polish machine.

3. You can also try this . . .

Same job - But can you remove the Polycarbonate covers off the headlamp housing.

Thanks in anticipation.

DB.

I have the same problem on my wife's 2001 Fabia 1.4 - it didn't fail the last MOT but the condition was listed as "advisory". 

 

Looks like I found the solution within 5 mins of arriving at this forum - many thanks to The Polish Guy!

I thought that there was specialist stuff out there for that job, if you think it is a problem in UK take a look at some of the cars in Italy etc where there is loads of sunny weather. I've seem some Alfa that had pure white headlights.

I did mine.

before

 

after

 

Sanded with 2400 grit then down to 3000 grit then finally some Autoglym resin polish with machine polish

The lights on my car are terrible, going to give this a go!

It's something I offer.  A full "cleanse" system, involving claying, multistage wet sanding process, and 2 stage polishing process.  I think there is a UV spray coating you can buy to prevent it going bad again in future.

 

My recent fabia needed doing for sure!

 

 

 

I have not used this stuff myself, but my neighbour used it to good effect on his Peugeot:

 

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_922499_langId_-1_categoryId_255233