How to clean glass headlight covers

[sftom]

I was wondering if anyone has found a product to clean the original glass headlight covers on their ti? It seems that the posts and products I've already seen are for plastic covers. Thanks!

[spidertri]

Stock headlights are plastic, aftermarket can be glass. Are your headlights glass and yellowed?

[sftom]

The left headline is definitely sort of yellowed, the right side less so. They are original, as far as I know. They really feel and sound like glass when I tap on them ... not sure how else to tell.

[dave45056]

It's possible the previous owner changed them out. Something I noticed when I got my headlights is that the OEM plastic headlight lens was held onto the body by 6 black clips... 3 on top and 3 on the bottom. The aftermarket glass lens was held onto the headlight body by 4 clips... 2 on top and 2 on the bottom.

Something else to consider, the corner lights are plastic for sure. Tap on it with your key, then tap on the headlight. Plastic will make a low tone when tapped on, glass is a higher pitch.

Glass doesn't really yellow, but it does get dirty and scratched. If you find your headlights are glass and you want to polish the lenses, try a product designed to take scratches out of windsheilds.

[sftom]

Thanks very much. I tapped the headlights on an e36 I saw parked yesterday and they sounded distinctly plastic, unlike my 318ti's headlights. I'll definitely give some glass cleaning/polishing products a try.

[campione]

On recommendatons found in this forum, I tried the "cheaper" Turtle Wax headlight polish kit on the ti this weekend. Nice change! It took about 15 minutes to do both lights and I'm quite pleased with the results. I then tried it on my daughter's S-Type Jag but it was ineffectve. Probaby have to go with a buffer system.

[JohnnyRico]

I purchased a headlight cover cleaner called PlastX for Plastic Headlight Cleaning. It's instructions states to use sandpaper. I read somewhere that if you use sandpaper or have to rub any sort of cream or compound paste too hard that it will damage the factory finish on the plastic headlight covers. I want to be sure before I embark on this task and damage my original plastic 1997 BMW 318ti headlight cover. Please advise. Thank you!


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