Headlight Coating Removal

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dontibbetts

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Anybody have any experience with removing this plastic coating on headlights? I don't have any idea what specific product it is. It was on the car when I bought it last weekend.
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I'll have to get some better pictures in the daylight tomorrow. The first one above was taken during daylight and the second two were taken after dark with flash and don't show it accurately.


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You can try to polish it off using a microfiber pad and a compound. If that does not work it will need to be sanded off.
 
I’ve had to deal with this exact problem a few times and more often than not it doesn’t fully remove unless you sand it off. If it’s baked on there good [and it usually is] a buffing pad usually can’t touch it.
 
Ugh. I was afraid I would hear that. I posted hopefully that someone had a magic bullet but it sounds like it will be nasty and labor intensive. I'll see what I can do and try to remember to take pictures along the way to document the progress and see what works.

This car is great looking from ten feet away but needs some attention to detail to look good up close. It'll get there though. I'm looking forward to working on this one since its tiny. So much quicker than the behemoth Sequoia that's also waiting to get cleaned/clayed/waxed.


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It's likely the original coating. If that is a C6, I've heard bad results from other owners (i.e. ended up buying replacements), although I have no idea if they know what they were doing.
 
mmhammer said:
It's likely the original coating. If that is a C6, I've heard bad results from other owners (i.e. ended up buying replacements), although I have no idea if they know what they were doing.
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It's definitely not original. This is a 2010 Miata and the PO applied this and apparently tried to remove it at some point. He said the process got messy/arduous and he decided to leave it for the next owner because he had decided to sell at that point.


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Exactly. There’s no way that’s the original coating.

And you’re lucky it’s a Miata and not a Corvette, because if it was the latter and it was the original failing coating your best option would be to run away and run FAST! lol.
 
Start with 400 wet sand, 600 and 1000 maybe higher then switch to a polishing compound. Some of your all in ones will work good after that. Tape off the paint first
 
mmhammer said:
Start with 400 wet sand, 600 and 1000 maybe higher then switch to a polishing compound. Some of your all in ones will work good after that. Tape off the paint first
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Bout to go through this process with the Sequoia too. Those headlights are awful. I have hope that I can get this plastic coating off of these and that they'll look good underneath. Probably wishful thinking.


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Wipe the slurry off once in a while with a clean rag and at some point you'll feel like you didn't make a mistake and its getting better.
 
dontibbetts said:
Bout to go through this process with the Sequoia too. Those headlights are awful. I have hope that I can get this plastic coating off of these and that they'll look good underneath. Probably wishful thinking.


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I think you’ll be just fine after sanding. I had to look at these for a while after the clearcoat I put on them failed and no amount of polishing would do anything to it..

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After a quik sanding with 1000 grit then 3000 + compound and they came back to normL.

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Speaking of behemoths, I just detailed an H2 Hummer this past weekend. I can’t imagine owning 1 of those things. Just having to frequently wash that thing must be crazy.
 
mmhammer said:
Wipe the slurry off once in a while with a clean rag and at some point you'll feel like you didn't make a mistake and its getting better.
Click to expand...

Haha. Great way to put it.


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Eldorado2k said:
I think you’ll be just fine after sanding. I had to look at these for a while after the clearcoat I put on them failed and no amount of polishing would do anything to it..

d5a0fc0e04d4481a5eaf7667e1401b9a.jpg


After a quik sanding with 1000 grit then 3000 + compound and they came back to normL.

cf55f3ec2b63b82235011520e7667351.jpg



Speaking of behemoths, I just detailed an H2 Hummer this past weekend. I can’t imagine owning 1 of those things. Just having to frequently wash that thing must be crazy.
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We have one of these Tacomas in the fleet too. His headlights still look pretty good but I'm gonna try to get them polished and coated in the next couple of months.

The Sequoia is a chore to keep clean because of its size but also because it's such a workhorse. It's forever hauling kids, tools, furniture etc. It gets used so much for working and family chores that it's hard to find time to get it cleaned up good. It's a pain to keep clean but I don't know how we'd get by without it.


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Is that a coating or a plastic overlay like laminex? If its a plastic, don't sand. If its a detiorating coating, you will need to do a multistep sanding and then a compound/polish.
 
Have you tried a heat gun? A hair dryer might work in a pinch.
 
rangerbay said:
Is that a coating or a plastic overlay like laminex? If its a plastic, don't sand. If its a detiorating coating, you will need to do a multistep sanding and then a compound/polish.
Click to expand...

Yeah, most of you guys must be seeing something different in the pictures than I am, it looks to me like tinted PPF.
 
It does kinda look like that now that you mention it and I look at it in a different manner!
 
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