Sprayed some sticker remover to get the dealer sticker off the car, it came off so easy I was happy. But some of the stuff dripped down when i hosed off my car onto my tail lights. Crazy what that stuff can do to plastic.
What you see is not on the inside, it's on the outside. It cannot be cleaned off. My only chance is to try and get some product to turn hazy headlights into a clean light..as it always does in the infomercial.
You should be able to "correct" that out. I have cleaned many plastic headlights by wet sanding with finer and finer grit wet sandpaper followed by plastic polish and my DA polisher. They always look new afterwards.
Plan-B, if the correcting doesn't work, is just buy another taillight. I bought a backup pair for the Shelby that look new for $100. The 2010-12 lights are plentiful and inexpensive.
I definitely plan on trying the wet sanding after some research. But where did you find backup lights for that price? I am finding plenty but not under $275.
My tail lights were so scratched up that I was all set to buy new ones. Then I read on a corvette sight about using Brasso to polish out scratches. I had nothing to lose,so I tried it. For less than $5 my lights look like new. Lots of elbow grease required, but as goose said, you should be able to fix your lights.
Just try some Meguiar's Plastic Polish prior to the sanding. Never sand unless you HAVE to sand, which you've yet to determine.
Also, throw-away whatever can of adhesive remover you used. That wouldn't have happened with a citrus-based remover like Goo-gone, nor would it have happened with 3M adhesive remover, or-or-or...
So whatever you used, toss it so you never accidentally screw anything else up with it.
Used the the plastic polish and didn't do the trick. So went with their headlight restoration kit and it worked pretty dam well. Would not say perfect, but you would have to really get your nose to it to tell the difference.
Pic below if of first pass. Looks good. Missed a few spots so went back and it looks great. Already put lights back on and will take a better pic later.
Regardless, threw away what killed the lens and never using that stuff again.
Thanks for the help all. I may contact a couple of the above to buy me extra tail lights anyway. Thanks.
It has been my experience that I have much better results restoring plastic lights if I buy the following parts and not a "kit:"
Large sheets of the following wet sandpaper:
600 grit
1000 grit
1500 grit
2000 grit
3000 grit
I use a rubber sanding pad and work from course to fine with the above list making sure to sand in a straight back-n-fourth pattern. Keep the area VERY wet to allow the water to wash away the impurities. After 3000 grit, I switch to correcting compounds: using medium/fine/swirl remover and finally plastic polish. All of these are applied with my Griots 3" DA polisher using an orange correcting pad.
After all of the above steps are taken, the lens looks brand new.
I found a good youtube video that just about mimics all you have listed here and that is my next step when I get a day off. The only difference is that they alternate the sanding pattern with each sandpaper, as in first sandpaper goes up and down, then the next is left to right and so on alternating the sanding pattern. Which I was not sure why alternate, but your method seems more logical.
Another reason is if you are sanding a deep scratch, it will be easier to correct by sanding across it vs. along it. By sanding in 2-different directions, you are guaranteed to hit scratches "against the grain."
If your lenses are not heavily damaged, sanding in one direction will work just fine.
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