My car looks pretty good, I just have a few minor things I want fixed and am not sure what to use. The main thing now is my tail lights. They look very hazy/dull. The car was painted recently and now the tail lights look like ****. Anybody else have this problem? And how did u fix it.
Here's a pic of the tail lights (b4 the paint job) can't see the haze from this angle, but at least you can identify the kind of tail lights i'm talking about.
Thanx, Marie

 

Get a power polisher with a foam pad. Then get some good wax or polish. Next polish away all those scratches!! I have don this to many plastic tails and it works quite well.

 

Thanx, I'll give it a try tomorrow!

 

Heres what I did.
First, remove the tail lights.

Then sand the lenses with 1000 grit sandpaper. This will make the lenses look really dull and hazy, but thats okay. When the lenses are evenly hazed, polish the lenses with regular car polish.
I use finish 2001 car polish (bright green bottle). Any liquid polish should work fine, but I dont recommend the turtle wax stuff what comes in the little can, it sucks.

You can wither polish the lenses by hand, or with a power polisher. I did mine by hand, and I polished the living heck out of them, but the lenses now look as smooth and shiny as glass.

If you are familiar with color sanding/buffing/polishing paint, the process is the same for tail lights, and actually any hard plastic pieces. I sanded and polished my old fan shroud (before i went to serpentine) and it was as shiny as my paint.

 

You can wither polish the lenses by hand, or with a power polisher. I did mine by hand, and I polished the living heck out of them, but the lenses now look as smooth and shiny as glass.


Thanx for the tip! Soon as I have my coffee it's off to the auto parts store. I didn't know that you could sand down plastic, I had no idea!

Thanx again,
Marie

 

Yea you can sand plastic, like if there are any scratches in it, they can actually sand out unless they are really deep. Since plastic is fairly soft however, I wouldnt recommend sanding it with anything lower than 600 grit though. You can sand and polish just about any hard materials (plastic, metal, paint, fiberglass, etc). I even polish my glass every now and then, it really makes the glass look clearer. I think this is mostly because the polish removes mineral and dirt deposits from the glass, though.

 

At the detail shop I work at we polish the glass all of he time. In fact most detailers hate doing glass and polish/buffing the glass is a major short cut.