It can.  But any plastic polish will work....for a week or two.

I was selling a Toyota van with badly sandblasted plastic headlights. Not yellowed though.

I wound up masking off the painted areas and grille around the headlights, and spraying them with automotive clearcoat. They were immediately perfectly crystal clear and looked absolutely brand new.

Though I have no idea how long such a treatment would last.

Pick up a single vehicle headlight refinishing kit from your local auto parts/paint store.  It will have everything you need, except for said drill.  I did them on my Dodge, lasted over a year, and was a really quick cleanup job to make them clear again after that time.

Yup, I did this too and worked pretty well.

 Mother's mag & aluminum polish works well on plastic too. If you want it really glossy finish with some Meguire's ultimate compound.

 The key to polishing plastics with a drill motor is to use very low speed. You don't want to heat it up. It will get gummy.

It'll take fine scratches out of a CD, and perhaps prevent cavities.

The problem I ran into is that the majority of the cloudiness and plastic damage was on the inside of the lens.  Aftermarket buckets on EBay are only a few bucks more than the restoration kits that won't do a thing in my case.

Meguiar's

DIY: How to restore car headlights with Meguiar's Sanding & Polishing System

I can buy a lot of toothpaste for $36.95.

Toothpaste will remove the odor of gasoline from your hands.

What gets the toothpaste smell off?

 

Am I the only one that thought based on the title, this thread should be in the UK folder?   

I bought a kit a couple years ago, Meguires or Mothers, I think, that included 2 stage wet sand and a polish.  The foam polishing ball that attaches to a drill was included.  It worked pretty well on both my Mazda and Chrysler headlights. Basically, tape off the areas around the headlight then stage 1 wet sand, stage 2 wet sand, then polish.  Took about 20min per headlight.

sand paper and polish should be $15 or so?

Those do not look bad at all.

I would start with a finishing polish on a pad that is made for applying wax or sealant and go from there.

The rule is least aggressive first.

I don't use Megs products, what I have I would go Poorboys World ProPolish and a Red Lake country pad.
Other polish options in the same range ( took a look in the cabinet ) would be Menzerna SF4500 or Optimum Poly Tech HyperPolish.
 
If you get too aggressive out of the gate, you can cause more problems down the road.
- There is a UV coating on the lens and if you polish it off with something as aggressive as mag & AL polish or sanding it, it will start the downhill run to yellow.  Now you are looking at having to polish it out completely and apply something like Opti Lens ( plastic lens coating similar to the perm paint coatings ).

If it does not clear up in 1 pass, try another pass.  Multi passes of something less aggressive is better than a single pass of more aggressive for the finish ( lens or paint ).
Also that is one that either a DA or by hand, don't use a drill or rotary for something that minor.

Sounds more expensive than toothpaste.

It is, but then again the wrong product and process on them is either replacement time continual polishing ( foregoing the cost of lens coating - which is 4x the cost of the paint coating )

getting the cheapest thing, usually costs more over the long run.

Wish he was in the Chicago metro area, I'd do it for free for him.

Mothers aluminum or mag polish works great. Even by hand. I've removed scratches from tail lights, fading on headlights and scratches in windscreens with it. Works amazing and far cheaper than a lot of specialty products.

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You are a lot braver than myself.  I would be curious of the long term usage of that on UV coated plastic.

Mine are not specialty products, it is a chemical based finishing polish.
- Chemical based instead of DAT or SMAT no grit in it to break down to get correction.

Chemical based works on paint, plastic and chrome ( chrome required the Flex to remove the marks ).
- Plastic polish should not have a break down component to it.

Quote from: marc11 on November 22, 2013, 06:10:40 AM

Mothers aluminum or mag polish works great. Even by hand. I've removed scratches from tail lights, fading on headlights and scratches in windscreens with it. Works amazing and far cheaper than a lot of specialty products.

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You are a lot braver than myself.  I would be curious of the long term usage of that on UV coated plastic.

Mine are not specialty products, it is a chemical based finishing polish.
- Chemical based instead of DAT or SMAT no grit in it to break down to get correction.

Chemical based works on paint, plastic and chrome ( chrome required the Flex to remove the marks ).
- Plastic polish should not have a break down component to it.

Maybe but I haven't seen any issues for as long as I owned the plastic part polished this way.

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