Fogged headlight lenses are the worst. The cool part about the plastic they use to protect your headlights is that they take rock strikes really well. Everything else pretty much fogs them over and impedes the light from getting through.
One of the problems we've had with the RV so far is night driving. We blew a light to start the trip, but even after replacing it, the fogged lenses still made it tough to see.
Headlights were a project on my to-do list before we left Massachusetts, but work obligations prevented me from getting to it until now.
In preparation for the work, I purchased Mothers NuLens Headlight Renewal Kit. It comes with several small sanding disks (800 grit and 1500 grit) a 3000 grit polishing pad, and a foam pad. If your headlights are really bad, you can use the sanding disks to wet sand the lenses if they're really scratched. Start at 800, then go to 1500, then 3000, then the foam pad - which is how I thought I was going to need to go.
Upon reading the box, and the instructions inside, Mothers recommends trying the foam pad and the polish first. There's plenty of polish in the bottle if the polish alone doesn't work. The advantage to doing this first is, sanding does make the plastic thinner, and you must keep the surface of the headlight wet and clean while you sand.
I first masked off all around the headlight lens. Mothers recommends two layers of blue painter's tape to protect the paint on your vehicle. Working in small sections, the headlight started coming crystal clear with just the polish and foam pad!
This turned out pretty awesome for me, because it made the job much quicker (about 20 minutes per lens) and is much less risky than actual sanding.
Now, the headlights are much brighter. My next project will be to install new high beam LED headlights.
-Scott
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