Review: Mothers NuLens™ Headlight Renewal Kit

[PranK]

Review: Mothers NuLens™ Headlight Renewal Kit

European cars seem to struggle with maintaining high levels of headlight condition.

While Japanese cars seem to suffer from fading/clouding, Euro's get pitting and a rough coating over them. We have 2 European cars and they've both fallen victim to this pitting and coating. 

I bought the Mothers NuLens™ Headlight Renewal Kit to try to clean up the headlights on my wife's 2007 Volkswagen Passat.

Here's some pics of the headlight before I started. You can see just how bad the pitting and scratches are.

 

So, the process is very simple;

1. tape up your paintwork
2. I put a hose on very low just dribbling over the headlight to keep it wet.
3. Sand with the supplied 800 grit pad (you'll see in the below pics I needed to do this longer)
4. When you have a uniform haze and it feels smooth, sand with the 1500 grit pad
5. When the haze is uniform again, dry the light and 
6. Sand with the 3000 grit foam pad.
7. Lastly, use the Powerball and polish to polish the headlight.

So, after about 20 mins, the result is amazing. You can see that some scratches still exist, I can't feel these so I missed them on the 800 grit stage. I'm planning on redoing the sanding next week to see if I can improve it. But, even without doing that again, it looks (and feels) incredible.

 

I would recommend this kit to anybody who has external defects on their headlights. (A lot of R33's get hazing/clouding on the inside of the headlight.)

This is a 5 star product for sure. $40 very well spent.

 

[junkie]

All these products are great but without some kind of UV protection the problem will be back, and faster than before, since all the sanding and polishing has now left bare plastic with zero protection

there are a couple of kits with spray on clear coat, i'm testing one now

[blade511]

All these products are great but without some kind of UV protection the problem will be back, and faster than before, since all the sanding and polishing has now left bare plastic with zero protection
there are a couple of kits with spray on clear coat, i'm testing one now

So is the process the same with the addition of a clear coat spray once completed ? I'm looking into this myself as I have three cars that could do with similar attention

[PranK]

This is a pic from last night showing the change in beam colour over the driver's side.

[junkie]

On 12/24/2016 at 2:10 PM, blade511 said:

 

So is the process the same with the addition of a clear coat spray once completed ? I'm looking into this myself as I have three cars that could do with similar attention

 

exactly the same process yeah. the clear coat is some special stuff that sticks to plastic without primer and has built in UV blocking ability

[essay]

If you have cutting compound or even a car polish it works, but without UV protection, it'll reoccur, but you won't be lighter in the pocket and don't need to muck about masking off.

[blade511]

Yeah I was wondering about that, I've been racking my brains on what to use as a light film over the top, silicone spray is too thick, I think clear coat will be aswell..

[colourclassic]

A brand called 'glassylite' offer a restoration kit which includes a UV resistant coating, and it seems to have good reviews. I haven't tried it yet but will soon. 

[niZmO_Man]

I used a Turtle kit, came with a UV resistance coat that you wiped on. Made the lens hazy to sanded and polished the lenses again. Now my lenses are yellow again and have this exact Mothers kit to try out.

[dyl33]

I've used that Glassy Lite kit worked well also Invision headlight kit has decent uv sealant. 

Another thing I've used is 303 aerospace protectant.

Best thing to do is just buy a bottle of UV sealant. if you can't get it locally, you can from the U.S then just sand/polish.

 

[warps]

I bought a meguiars headlight polishing kit. It's just some sanding pads (various grades), and polish and the uv protectant.

Did the first headlight with it and it turned out ok for a lot of work. Then had to remove the headlights to change bulbs  (yes, really) so I attacked the other light. Started with a sanding block and 320 grade wet and dry. Then repeated with 800, 1500 and finished with 2000 grade. After that I hit it with the polisher working through 3 grades of polish and finished with some of the uv protectant from the kit.

the second light turned out heaps better - similar amount of  work but much easier just buying the right grades of sandpaper.  It helps if you have a ROP for polishing though.

It's worth getting a bottle of the uv protectant though. Everything else is just normal sanding/ polishing stuff.

[PranK]

I've started coating my headlights weekly with the 303 protectant as it has UV protection.

@warps I did this last year with my Bora, just bought the sand paper grades and did it myself. The reason I grabbed the Mothers kit this time is because of the polish and the polish ball to really get them sparkling, which it does. I will just use the sand paper directly from now on.

[Ryanchit]

Do you find after using this or something similar it affects the brightness of the lights by much??

[PranK]

@Ryanchit check the post above that has the pic of my car at night. It has really affected the quality of the light in a positive way.