Just thought I'd post my experience with the lens polish I tried this weekend. I suppose this is a product review. You know, for the greater good.
Permatex Headlight Lens Restoration KitAKA Plastic Polish, Haze Remover, Fog Remover. Acrylic Scratch Remover
Here are the before and after pics. Yeah, that's the same headlight, I just got in tighter the second time.
I bought a used 01 Subaru Outback not too long ago with over 200,000 km on it. It came from the interior BC, which means mostly highway miles (since highway is all you'll find in the interior BC)--great for the engine, bad for the finish. The hood is riddled with rock dings, and so are the headlight covers. There was also a pretty good fog on the headlights due (I'm told) to exposure to UV from the sun. Aside from looking a little shabby, the lights sucked in highway driving at night--kinda like if you covered your lights in wax paper.
There are quite a few plastic polishes available to take the haze off, and most of them get positive reviews (Meguiars, 3M, Plexus, etc.). But I stumbled on the Permatex at Canadian Tire and it appealed to me because it looked heavy duty. And it's $14.99, which is in the ballpark of the other brands out there. But what's novel about Permatex is, they give you a small bottle of goop like all the other polishes, but they include some latex gloves, a cloth, and a secret ingredient which is, uh, sandpaper. That's right, you scrub your headlights with progressively finer pieces of sandpaper and then finish it off with the polish.
There's a pretty good (and pleasingly cheesy) Permatex demo on Youtube that will tell you all about it:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=2ndeBdDezkMMy experience was pretty much as they describe, except it probably took me closer to an hour/headlight. (But again, my lenses were pretty beat up). And the latex gloves were a bit flimsy; I burned through both of them on the first headlight. It does take quite a bit of elbow grease--not that you have to scrub hard, it's just tedious.
I'm quite happy with the outcome. Quite a few pits remain, but you have to get pretty close to see them (or feel them). The headlights were rough to touch before, and now they're smooth. Most important, the fog is gone and night driving is markedly better. I wouldn't say I achieved showroom condition--if you get up get up really close, you can make out some swirls, but I've figured out a remedy for that too--don't get up that close.
