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Money Saving Tip for Cleaning Yellowed Headlights

O

OBIO

Retired SOH Admin
Ya'll know how thost plastic headlights on your cars, trucks and vans turn yellow over time due to oxidation? And ya'll know how the car parts store has those cleaning kits for $20 to $40? And ya'll know that spending lots of money on things that I can do a lot cheaper is something that I am totally against?

Well...I just cleaned the headlights on my 1994 Plymouth Grand Voyager LE mini-van AND on my father-in-law's 1999 Dodge full-size pick up truck for less than a dollar.

Here's what you'll need:

Glass cleaner
Some paper towels
A bucket of water (for rinsing)
A cloth or sponge (for rinsing)

The secret ingredient: A $1 tube of Colgate Baking Soda and Peroxide tooth paste....the paste kind, not the gel kind. Bought mine at Family Dollar.

Here's how you do it:

Spray the headlight with some glass cleaner. Then put a nice bead of toothpaste across the upper part of the headlight face....all the way across. Use a paper towel to smear the tooth paste over the entire surface of the headlight....then scrub like crazy in a circular motion. Scrub the entire surface of the headlight. Once the toothpaste thickens up from scrubbing, spray on a bit more glass cleaner and scrub some more. Then rinse with water...making sure to rinse the toothpaste off the bumper and grill and what not as well.

Stand back and compare the headlight you just cleaned to the one you haven't cleaned yet. Yeah...it works! And it won't cost you $20 to $40.

Granted, the result may not last as long as with the expensive kit...but come on, if you have to do this twice a year....you may be out 5 minutes of time and your wallet will not be so empty.

Oh...I did my van and my father-in-law's truck and used not quite half the tube of toothpaste....and it was one of those little tubes that you would buy for traveling...not the big full-sized tubes.

OBIO
 
I just did this on my bmw e46 headlights a few days ago,only I used a little T-Cut (Autosol Metal Polish is also very good) and lots of elbow grease.
 
OBIO said:
......Well...I just cleaned the headlights on my 1994 Plymouth Grand Voyager LE mini-van AND on my father-in-law's 1999 Dodge full-size pick up truck for less than a dollar.......
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip........:salute:

Tommy
 
I got new ones on my 2001 Jeep when one was broken in an accident and the insurance company paid for a replacement. It looked brand new and the old one was foggy. But then I pointed out that the orange reflector part on the bottom of the new one was different. So they bought a new one for the other side so they would match. Sweet! :applause:

But I'll try the toothpast trick on my daughter's 2001 Cabrio. Do they still look good a month later?

:ernae:
 
Don't know how long they will stay clear Frank. I just did the cleaning today. I can say that my head lights are now much brighter and whiter. I also had to adjust them....they were adjusted too high and a lot of their light was wasted on the tree tops along the road. I now have them properly aligned...and between that and the cleaning I can (as the Who sang) see for miles and miles and miles and miiiiiillllles.

OBIO
 
In the earlier days of toothpaste, it was made with finely crushed sea shells, hence the white color. It worked like a micro abrasive to scour the enamel surface which would react by rebuilding itself to some degree. These days I don't know how much abrasive is in toothpastes, certainly probably not in gel types. I've used Arm&Hammer white toothpaste for a long time on headlights but the cleaning only lasts a few weeks depending on other effects. It basically removes the top layer of dirt and browned plastic making the light look and perform much better until the continuous degradation gets noticeable again. I think the plastic is either oxidizing or is UV unstable. Either way, these particular plastics are poor formulations and need regular maintenance.
 
You can follow up with a regular polish to help hold it for a bit. No matter what you treat these lenses with, they are going to discolor again over time through regular oxidation.

I would also put some painter's tape around the lenses prior to polishing, even with toothpaste. You can inadvertently damage your finish (should be able to buff it out again, but why all the extra work?).
 
This didn't work on my 1987 Mustang when I tried it many years ago. The top layer of the lights was simply peeling in spots and the issue was that the INSIDE was getting to be almost as bad. I could not inside to polish. Aftermarket replacements ran around $20 each.

- Ivan.
 
Regular toothpaste works, but it's basically just a polishing compound. It does not leave any sort of protection on that freshly polished surface and the plastic will quickly yellow from UV exposure. My headlight lenses also got into bad condition a couple of years ago. I wet sanded mine, then buffed with rubbing compound, then polishing compound and finished them with Mother's PlastX. The PlastX contains a very mild abrasive and polymers that leave a protective coating on the lens. I reapply the PlastX 3 or 4 times a year to keep the lenses clean and clear.
 
FWIW, the abrasive in toothpaste is the same as that used in car polish, microground particles of diatoms, those little motile shelled algae. Toothpaste contains very fine ground particles as does a machine glaze, as opposed to larger ground particles found in car polish.

It works on plastic models too, but I still prefer Micro-Glaze # 3 Machine Glaze. Costs more than the toothpaste, I admit, but it gores a long way. I prefer top buff out the headlights using a buffing tool in my cordless drill. None of my three Hondas have ever required it (they use glass, not plastic), but I do my mother's Altima and my brother's three Chryslers (Van Cirrus, and PT).

Good tip for those on the cheap OBIO, but one does have to apply some elbow grease, regardless of compound used. A drill with a polishing and buffing tool helps the weak shouldered such as I with that.

Caz
 
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