I bought a 3m restoration kit yesterday (yeah yeah I could have just gotten the sand paper etc.) and went to my parents house. I sanded the headlights and got great results on the passenger side. I did the process twice on the driver side headlight but did not get the same results. When You look at the light you can tell the yellowing is gone on the outside. But there is still what appears to be a yellowish haze on the inside. Has anyone had this happen?

driver side before


passenger side during sanding


Passenger side done compared to untouched driver side


passenger side done



driver side done

You can tell the driver side has all the yellowing gone in this photo though.




Looks like the inside has yellowing and UV damage. Once again has anyone had this happen?

 

this shows the haze on the inside that I am talking about.



remember this was sanded with 500, 800, wet sanded, then polished twice. Notice the top and bottom are clear on the lense.

 

Since the sun can easily get in and shine off those reflectors, there's no reason to not assume that the inside couldn't also weather and get yellowed at the same time as the outside. That's probably exactly what's happened.

For what it's worth, I use rubbing compound to do this. 3M fine cut. It works great. Then I finish with a rotary buffer (not the random orbital kind, the one that can eat through paint). You might consider taking the lights off the car if you want to use a buffer.

 

Some plastics used yellow or discolor from UV light, so no amount of sanding will solve the issue. Most Mfg's are now using a good grade of Polycarbonate

 

I've refinished a few lenses with the 3M kit, but never seen one hazed on the inside. Can you put the light in an oven to loosen the glue between the lens and the body, and pull it apart? I know that some lights can come apart that way.

 

Just leave it and pretend to be a LMGTe car. Brum brum

 

Maybe see if you can buy new lenses from Mazda?

 

FTW

 

this guy knows nothing about plastics.