Plastic headlight housings(mecury sable)

[iwannadie]

Ok, my mom has a 99 sable and the plastic headlight lenses are horrible. She brought it to me like a year ago and I used one of those meguiars restore kits and it turned out great. The lens was so bad you couldn't see through it and after the kit it looked near new.

I just got a look at the lenses again and they are right back to the way they used to be. I again used the kit and it restored them just as well again which is awesome.

My question is can I put anything on them to help maintain the results for longer? I see meguiars has a product called PlasticX that says it does a lot of things including protecting plastics. I've also seen that some cars use a vinyl protection cover. I would rather replace a strip of vinyl yearly than have to polish the lenses. Am I just stuck restoring these things monthly to keep them clear or what?

Oh, to buy new lenses it's like 400 bucks for the pair so thats out of the cards right now too.

 

[Poodles]

Have to re-coat them in a UV protectant (like what they leave the factory with).

 

[iwannadie]

So something like this should help then? Is there a particular brand to look for, I've never used any type of UV protectant on clear plastics before.

 

[Poodles]

What happens is the plastic they use gets destroyed by UV, but is good for making lenses. They spray on a UV coating that gets chipped, then it starts hazing (think of it as a rock chip on your hood, it rusts and spreads).

Not sure what to use, but I know there are GOOD headlight restore kits out there that the last steps are recoating. After the recoat, a layer of that rock guard clear plastic stuff would help them from hazing again.

 

[iwannadie]

After posting I started to read up more about the lenses and oxidizing. It does seem most lenses use a top UV protectant layer that gets burned away over time(polishing helps remove it too). Some lenses look like they use a UV protectant all the way through, though it's not common. The high end restore kits all come with a follow up protectant coating to use after the polish. My mcguiars kit has a UV protectant added into the polish or so they say.

I'm going to give one of these brands a try they both come up a lot as quality stuff and each has the protectant coating. At least I am on the right path now and know what's going on.

Diamondite / Wolfgang

 

[NgoFcukinWay]

I top the headlights I do with a couple of stuff after I wetsand them down. Once I finalize things down with either PlasX or compound/polish, I'll top it off with either Optimum Protectant Plus or 303 Aerospace Protectant for UV protection, then add a layer of Klasse AIO, then one last layer of OPP or Aerospace. Once all is said and done, it would be a good idea to go back once in a while and give the lights a light wetsanding to clear it up again.

 

[Poodles]

If properly done you won't have to wetsand them for another 10 years at least...