Two Easy Ways to Clean Cloudy Headlights

There are two ways to restore your cloudy headlights without damaging the plastic covers. Car Talk explain how you can do this for free in under five minutes, and a better way that costs you $30 dollars and just 30 minutes of your time.

Cloudy headlights are a common issue. Since the headlight world switched from sealed glass units to plastic, it seems like any car over ten years old has yellow, dim headlights. The shame is that it is super easy to either improve them or make them perfectly clear, depending on how much time you want to spend. There are a few internet hacks that suggest you use bug spray, WD-40, or other liquids. However, we are going to suggest that you skip those methods. There is a chance that the cover of the headlight can be damaged if you use a liquid not intended for this purpose. Our way is just as easy, and you will definitely have the main ingredient on hand.

The Quickest and Easiest Way To Restore Cloudy Headlights - Toothpaste

If you have a beater with cloudy headlights and need a quick fix, Car Talk can help. The first thing you want to do is sneak up into the bathroom and steal your spouse’s toothpaste. If you have some cheap travel toothpaste that’s gritty and yucky tasting, that will work even better.

Wet your headlights with some tap water, and then dampen a paper towel. Put a pea-sized dab of toothpaste on the damp paper towel and start to rub it on a corner of the headlamp assembly away from the front part (the important part). Rub it on there a bit and then rinse with water and a clean paper towel. How does it look? If it is getting better, we can proceed. If it gets worse, stop and try method two below.

If step one seems to do the trick, keep the headlight cover damp and use more toothpaste. Polish the cover thoroughly and try to be even with the paste and elbow grease. Rinse and repeat a few times. If the headlights get noticeably clearer, find some glass cleaner and soak the headlights thoroughly. Give them a good final cleaning with a clean paper towel. Step back, admire your work, and feel like a genius.

The “Right Way” to Restore Yellow, Cloudy Headlights

It’s the calcium phosphate, aluminum oxide, and silica in the toothpaste doing the magic. These are all fine abrasives. You are jumping ahead to the final step in the proper process of restoring cloudy headlights, and it often works if they are not too far gone.

A better way with more predictable results, is to buy a kit specifically designed for the job. 3M makes a good kit for about fifteen bucks. You can buy it online at your favorite retailer. We’ve used kits of these types many times and with excellent results. In addition to the kit, you will need a hand-held drill.

process is a bit messy and it will help ensure you don’t accidentally drop a tool on the hood. You may wish to also mask the headlight with painter’s tape in case the drill gets away from you. Use a KN95 or N95 mask to prevent breathing in the dust you are about to create. Safety glasses are a great idea as well.

Using the kit is simple. First, wash the headlights with car soap and water or glass cleaner. Then you place the polishing pad on the end of your drill and start with the coarse sandpaper the kit includes. Yup, sandpaper. You can go to town polishing away the outer layer of dirty oxidized plastic that is making the headlights cloudy. You change the sandpaper pads in ever-finer grades. Last, you wet-sand and polish up the headlights using a paste the kit includes. Sort of like the toothpaste you used in our example above. If you follow the steps and the cloudiness is on the outside, not inside, you will have headlights that look literally as good as new. Or darn close.

One Last Tip - UV Protection

The reason the headlights get yellow and cloudy is a combination of micro-scratches and UV (sunlight) oxidation of the headlight cover. Dirt also gets ground into the plastic as well. When your car was new, the headlights had a film of UV protection over them. You’ve now ensured it is gone for good, so you should replace it. You can buy a spray can of the stuff for about fifteen bucks. Some kits come with a single dose on a wet-wipe. If so, just use that.

The toothpaste method is quick and works marginally well sometimes. We have had about a 50% success rate with this method. The Prius above was done using just toothpaste. The light on the left of the screen was polished and the one on the right is how it looked before we began.

The dedicated headlight polishing kits work about 95% of the time. We once lined up a few different cars of varying models, used the kits, and found that some came out like new. The Honda Fit shown at the top of our story was just about perfect.

However, some are only partially improved. A Honda Accord, for example, came out so-so with the same kit and the same effort. All of the cars we’ve used the kits on saw noticeable improvements however.

The cloudy yellow layer isn’t just unattractive; it is also unsafe. While we didn’t use any instruments to measure the lights’ effectiveness before and after we polished them, the results are literally night and day after the headlights are cleaned up. You will see the improvement when you use the lights at night.

Of all the do-it-yourself vehicle improvement projects one can perform, this is the easiest, least expensive, and most satisfying to try.

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