Review: Meguiar's Perfect Clarity Headlight Restoration Kit

[Marc08EX]

Product Review: Meguiar's Perfect Clarity Headlight Restoration Kit
Meguiar's Perfect Clarity Headlight Restoration Kit

Description: (Taken from AG's website)

Simply sand, then seal – headlight restoration made easy by Meguiars!

Meguiars Perfect Clarity Headlight Restoration Kit a fast, simple and EASY solution to cloudy and yellowed headlights. Designed with the novice in mind (nothing to be ashamed of!), the Meguiars Perfect Clarity Headlight Restoration Kit is so easy to use that anyone can do it! The Meguiars Perfect Clarity Headlight Restoration Kit consists of two easy steps.

Meguiars is a company that has been providing surface care solutions for over 100 years, to they know a thing or two about how to restore the appearance to any given part of your vehicle, including headlights!

Most headlight restoration kits require multiple steps, and the included instructions are enough to scare away most beginners. Thankfully that’s not the case with the Meguiars Perfect Clarity Headlight Restoration Kit.

Meguiars Perfect Clarity Headlight Restoration Kit requires only two steps to restore the dull and yellowed headlights on your vehicle. First you sand the headlights (by hand or with Meguiars DA Power System), and then you apply the durable sealants. Treated headlights will remain crystal clear for up to one year.

Meguiars Perfect Clarity Headlight Restoration Kit includes everything you need to perform both steps!

Price:

$19.99

The Review:

The brother of a friend of mine was asking if there's anything I can do with his faded and oxidized headlights. His current headlights weren't producing much light and he felt it was very unsafe when driving through highways with no street lights. Having restored a few headlight lenses in the past, I didn't have a problem agreeing to this task.

Now any detailer hanging out in AG or any other detailing forum would know that headlight restoration involves a lot of elbow grease. It involves sanding with different levels of abrasions, polishing with compounds/polish and finally sealing your work for protection against the harmful UV rays. Well, all that hard work is a thing of the past. Be prepared to be blown away with this product. I know I WAS!!!

The kit comes with 2 scuffing discs, a cleaning solution, and the coating aerosol spray. The scuffing discs feel like scotchbrite so you know it has some bite in them. What's amazing about these discs is that they're sized and shaped to mount to the DA power system. I think that's ingenious!!! Being able to clean the headlights with the DA power system will literally take the elbow grease out of the equation.

Here are the "before" pictures of the headlights I had to work with:

Tape the surrounding area in order to protect them from unwanted damage especially paint:

The instructions say to put a quarter sized dot of the cleaning solution into the scuffing disc. (There was a delay between when I added the solution up to when I took this picture so the solution soaked in a little)

Then start cleaning the headlight lens as shown:

It is recommended that you go left/right or up/down in a uniform manner. Make sure that you hit all areas evenly. The following picture shows 2 sections of the headlight. The right side shows the cleaning solution being worked on while the left side shows what the headlight lens looks like after it is cleaned. As you can see, there's uniform frosting on the lens.

After the entire headlight lens has been cleaned, now it's time for the magic to happen.. Just spray the headlight coating on the frosted headlight lens and watch the opaque lens turn to PERFECT CLARITY! I had my socks knocked off!!! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Here's what the headlight lens looked like after the coating has been applied (2 coatings with 5 minutes in between). (Only the top one has been restored)

Here's the passenger side headlight lenses after they have both been restored:

Here's a shot of the entire truck after the headlights have been restored:

Final Thoughts:

Meguiar's hit a home run with this product. This is a total game changer in the headlight restoration arena IMO. It eliminates all the hard work and elbow grease in the process of restoring headlight lenses. It's even easier that they made the scuffing discs compatible with the DA power system! Gone are the days of sanding and polishing. Just scuff up the headlights and spray on the coating. IT'S THAT EASY! Not only is it easy but IT WORKS TOO! The coating has also been lab tested to last for at least a year! That's AMAZING.

If you have oxidized or hazed up headlights, then do yourself a favor and pick up this product on your next headlight restoration project. I promise you will not be disappointed.

 

[FUNX650]

Hi Marc...

Thanks for your review that brings yet another excellent
performing Meguiar's product to our attention. :dblthumb2:


Bob

 

[281]

rops:Great review Marc, thanks for sharing rops:

 

[The Critic]

I'm not sure if it's the camera, but the final finish looks a bit dull for my taste.

Did the spray-on clear leave a finish that had heavy texture?

 

[jeff79]

marc can you provide any evidence of the lab testing? every company ive spoken too said their sealant/clear coat should last around a year but most fail around 6-8 month mark.

 

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Beautiful review Marc. Well thought out and executed. I see that the product works as advertised. Scuff the lens and spray. Couldn't be any easier.

However this brings up a question or two if the coating lasts just a year.

Those scuff pads are incredibly aggressive and will make short work of imperfections in the plastic lens. The lens coating seems that it behaves very much like automotive clear coat in that it can cover those marks left by the scuff pad. If this coating only lasts a year, I suppose when it fades away the scuff marks reappear.

I have performed a few jobs by scuffing lenses with a scuff pad and then covering them with automotive clear coat shot by SATA paint gun. They come out just like that.

In the body shop world before painting a vehicle you use a scuff pad like that to scuff the paint to promote adhesion for the clear coat to stick to the surface. Although automotive clear coat will last years if not the life of the vehicle if the paint is maintained properly.

This begs the question, does it say anywhere on the label that it can be used on paint as well?

 

[Marc08EX]

Hi Marc...

Thanks for your review that brings yet another excellent
performing Meguiar's product to our attention. :dblthumb2:


Bob

Thanks a lot for your compliments Bob!! How are you doing? Hope you're doing well.

rops:Great review Marc, thanks for sharing rops:

Thank you so much James!

I'm not sure if it's the camera, but the final finish looks a bit dull for my taste.

Did the spray-on clear leave a finish that had heavy texture?

The top headlight lenses look perfectly clear. The bottom lenses weren't perfectly clear but it improved by A TON. You can now see the bulbs inside. I think the slight cloudiness is probably from the fact that the horizontal part of the lens (hidden above the bumpers and below the grilles - hope I'm explaining that correctly) is still yellow. This causes the color to be refracted back to the front lens.

I also think it could be the lighting especially on the 8th picture.

marc can you provide any evidence of the lab testing? every company ive spoken too said their sealant/clear coat should last around a year but most fail around 6-8 month mark.

Meguiar's put a reference number at the back of the packaging. I'll get it to you later. I'm trusting what they claim. I guess we'll see if it does stay clear after a year.

Beautiful review Marc. Well thought out and executed. I see that the product works as advertised. Scuff the lens and spray. Couldn't be any easier.

However this brings up a question or two if the coating lasts just a year.

Those scuff pads are incredibly aggressive and will make short work of imperfections in the plastic lens. The lens coating seems that it behaves very much like automotive clear coat in that it can cover those marks left by the scuff pad. If this coating only lasts a year, I suppose when it fades away the scuff marks reappear.

I have performed a few jobs by scuffing lenses with a scuff pad and then covering them with automotive clear coat shot by SATA paint gun. They come out just like that.

In the body shop world before painting a vehicle you use a scuff pad like that to scuff the paint to promote adhesion for the clear coat to stick to the surface. Although automotive clear coat will last years if not the life of the vehicle if the paint is maintained properly.

This begs the question, does it say anywhere on the label that it can be used on paint as well?

Thanks for the compliments, Mike!

The coating does sound like automotive clear. I remember Mike Stoops posting in MOL stating that this needs a scuffed up lens surface for it to bond properly. If the surface is polished, then the coating will not stick.

Quote From MOL:

The surface really should be scuffed in order for the spray to take hold, and you really don't want to be doing that to brand new lenses. For brand new headlights, you're better off doing nothing more than waxing them on a regular basis.

I don't remember reading anywhere that the coating can be used on paint.

 

[Angus]

Great review, thanks for sharing! You'll have to keep us updated on the products longevity.

 

[Marc08EX]

Great review, thanks for sharing! You'll have to keep us updated on the products longevity.

Thanks a lot Angus!

I'll try to remember and check how the coating is doing a year from now.

 

[392hemi]

Thanks a lot Angus!

I'll try to remember and check how the coating is doing a year from now.

Your 4 year check in, how did it do?

 

[rlmccarty2000]

Sorta off subject but has there ever been a class action suit brought against car manufacturers for developing these cloudy lenses. We regulate the hell out of the auto industry when it comes to safety, but they get away making lenses that cloud up after 6-7 years? I would rather have the old glass lenses, they were cheap to replace.

 

[Eldorado2k]

I would rather have the old glass lenses, they were cheap to replace.

Can’t do it. I think some lady in a wheelchair waiting at an intersection suffered a glass splinter in her pinky when 2 vehicles collided in the late 1990’s which lead to big government mandated changes prohibiting glass headlights in fear of another glass splinter possibly causing great pain and suffering to an innocent bystanders finger.