My left headlight in my 03' CL is in need of MAJOR cleaning. I've already tried rubbing VERY thoroughly with no luck, and I started to think it might be a problem inside the headlight (fogging maybe?), but when I took it to the Acura dealership, they said it's on the outside and just due to weather (but why only the left one?), and that they can fix it with some polish, but for $50....which seems like a ripoff.

I did search, btw, with no luck...https://acurazine.com/forums/search.php?searchid=180420

So, for all you CL people...any suggestions on how to clean this up? And what is this special "polish" the acura guys use to get rid of this?

Heres the pic of the right headlight (for comparison):


Here are some pictures of the weird buildup:









Sorry about the quality...all I had to take pics was a camera phone.

I'll try to get daytime pics tomorrow if needed.

 

Get some Meguiar's PlastX and start scrubbing. It's on the outside.

 

Plast-X is great. Try it on a buffer if you can't get it with your hand. If that doesnt work hit it up with some sand paper. look for a thread in the 2nd Gen Discussion with something like '...and freshly wetsanded headlights'. I used the technique there with great results on three cars so far.

 

Alrite, I bought some of that Meguiar's PlastX stuff, and WOW that worked REALLY well (you can still see the foggy white junk on the headlight when you go up really close, but oh well...i'm assuming its bc I did it by hand instead of buffer).

Heres some before and after pics (sorry...still crappy cameraphone quality and still massive lol):

Before

After

 

crap i forgot to resize them to 800x600...um.....sorry lol, yall will have to scrolllllllllll

 

Nice!

 

Looks real good. Was there a lot of elbow grease needed? I have somewhat the same problem with my driver's side headlight too, but plastx didn't seem to do much for me. It looks like a layer of the plastic has started to peel off.

 

i wouldn't say it required too much elbow grease, but I did scrub in circular motion for about 10 minutes or so (for each headlight...i decided to just do them both)

edit: oh yeah, i think a layer of plastic was peeling on mine too (not sure though), but when i slid my finger across where that white buildup stuff was, it felt kinda rough

 

You just use a terry cloth when applying? I used a block of foam like the instructions said, but didn't seem to do much of anything but move the compound around.

 

I used a foam block for the longest time when I had to use plast-x on my car and friend's car and a terry cloth in IMO is way better and easier to work with.

 

i used an "applicator pad" i got from walmart for like a buck