KLR

Has anyone found a good approach to making 100K+ mile fog light lenses look better? I haven't seen anything in the archives on this, but I was looking at a couple of 3M plastic polishing products while I was in an autoparts store today and wondered whether they'd have any effect.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

KuHL 951

I've been using the Novus plastic polishes for over 15 years on everything from tailights to soft convertible top windows...nothing compares to it. It comes in stepped grades and will make the lens like new. Here's a link:

http://www.novuspolish.com


Steve

Sufnituning

I think the lenses is made out of glass :-)

KuHL 951

I think he means the outer covers which are plastic, yes the actual lens are glass but they won't last long without the protective covers.

Peckster

Whatever, if he has rock guard already he should just replace it. If not, he can add new rock guard, it will look shiny. Paragon sells it.

Life is too short to try to polish glass lenses.

KLR

Hmmm... nothing is ever simple. Clearly the small pieces on either side of the fog light (the white arrow) that have a single screw in the center are plastic. The center "lense" (the grey arrow) certainly seems to be plastic on my car. Given the sand blasting, I'd be pretty surprised if the outer portion were glass. Is there an outer cover pointed at by the grey arrow that is plastic? If so, what is the cost of a replacement from Paragon? I couldn't find it in their online catalog. I've just been assuming that the only replacement option is an entire new light, which is rather pricey.

- Neal

IceShark

The main lens is definately glass. If you think it is plastic then you can't tell your materials or someone applied a sheet of stone guard on the lens. I don't know what to say about your material identification skills other than get someone else to help identify. Or just take a razor and try and cut the surface. Also, if you remove the lens you should be able to see the edge of the stone guard sheet product.

If it is stone guard strip it off with a heat gun and/or solvent and just replace it. If it is the glass that is all sand blasted it is possible to polish the glass back up with polishes but that is quite the time consuming job and takes some skill not to put waves in the glass surface. You can find kits that astronomy lovers use to polish up their "build it yourself" telescope mirrors. Might be worth it if the glass chips are not too deep and you have more spare time than cash.

KLR

Uhhh... alrighty, then. Back to my original question, has anyone had any success clearing up the general cloudiness on these things, or is replacement the only option. Beyond the sandblasting, there certainly seems to be discoloration.

Peckster

Glass doesn't discolor, you have plastic stoneguard over the glass. Take it off like Ice Shark said.

IceShark

The Peckster is correct, the glass shouldn't discolor. If you got some junk inside the housing the bulb heat many have vaporized the junk and deposited it all over. The glass lenses would be easy enough to clean off but the reflectors would probably be a bear to clean without scratching them too bad.

If the stone guard plastic isn't on the lens and there really is a problem with the glass I would look at this as a great excuse to upgrade to the Euro lenses that also have a working driving light lens. Shop around and you should be able to get them for about $125 each. Then count on spending another $25 to $50 on getting switches, relay, wiring, fuse holder, etc. Don't go cheap material on this. So it will be more towards $50 with top quality materials. But you will sure love them when you flip the switch!

turbo944

They are definitely all glass.....I had a rock hit one of my original ones and busted it into a thousand pieces....

As for those 2 end pieces, they are like $3? or something each from Sunset Porsche. If you are ordering some stuff from Paragon or Sunset or somebody, I'd just order new ones. Paying for the stuff to clean up your lenses and the time you spend will definitely put you well over the cost and ease of just putting new ones on. My old ones looked awful when I put in my new Euro lights, so I just got new ones....didn't even think twice about cleaning up the old ones. They're still around here somewhere though....I'm a freakin' pack rat