sanjsanj

you definitely don't need new headlights, everyone's sanded it back to new no problem

tonyb635

Not unless you have an extra $3000,00 sitting around. New ones will set you back $1500 each at the Dealer!

Bill109

i wet sanded with a d/a with 1500, 3000, 5000. then used a rubbing compound and a machine polish looks brand new.
maybe a layer of clearcoat will protect the finish a little more since most of the automotive clear coats now days have a uv protection in it.
good to hear you found a clean car you like, saw the thread asking about the m54. i have the same engine you do, m54b25 and its great. not a whole lot of power but its a cruiser. keeps me out of trouble and certainly looks nice, i too found one i couldn't pass up! good luck!

darkrider

I did a set of plastic headlight lenses for our old minivan with Novus 1-2-3 Plastic polish and it worked very well. I haven't tried it on the E60, as my 2010 has no visible hazing at this point, but won't hesitate to use it when they do. I used a dremel with a buffer pad and it took about 20 mins per headlight to get them looking like new. The #3 solution takes down any deep scratches or gouges. The #2 does the majority of polishing, and the #1 is a spray on final coat.

sanjsanj

You're lucky - the lci headlights have a far better plastic material and clear coat which makes it very resistant to scratches, unlike the pre lci

lcc014

I just did mine back in Labor Day's weekend, about 1.5 hour each side with help from my daughter. I used 600, 800, 1000, 1500 and 2000 wet sandpapers. After sanding, applied the rubbing compounds and then Plastic X from Meguiars using DA polisher. Final coating is the Opti-Lens applied by hand.

This was after 600 wet sandpaper:



This was the final product:



As other members said, the key is to keep protecting the headlight from the UV after sanding. I keep using Meguiars headlight protectant every 2 weeks on top of the Opti-Lens coating. So far, after 1 month, so good ....

sanjsanj

that looks awesome!!

lcc014

Thank you.