Over the years the little old Mazda has been neglected a bit. I recently rewired all the stereo components, re-colored the interior, fixed the hard to roll down windows, added herculiner to the bed.
How many of you have plastic headlight lenses on your car or trucks and they have faded to yellow?
Well I have two vehicles that are like that and I decided it was long overdue to get something about it done.
My wife has a Nissan Maxima and her headlights were really bad. Each headlight assembly runs anywhere from $350 to $500 and I figured there had to be a something I could do to keep from having to buy new headlight assemblies.
While I was at Wal-Mart I noticed there was a kit just for this situation. It is called Crystal View and it came in a silver bag for only $20 and I thought I would give it a try. Here is a video demonstration of it.
I decided to test it out on my car first and if it did well I would do my wife’s car. I did this in case it messed up, it would only mess up mine and not hers. Remember folks, a happy wife is a happy life.
The Crystal View sort of works, but its NOT the best way to accomplish the “like new” lens look. This kit comes with several sanding pads and some polishing compound. You first scrub it by hand with the heavy grit and a little compound, then move on to the lighter grit with the compound and finish it up by reapplying clear coat over the lens. If your lens is not in terrible shape this might work for you, but its yields unsatisfactory results. It didn’t look “like new” when I was done.
I’m glad I tried this out on my car instead of hers. Hers needed it worse than mine and I want hers to look fantastic when I was done, so this Crystal View stuff was not the ticket.
I consulted with the internet thinking surely I could find a better way to get this done and low and behold I found what I was looking for. You can find out how to do just about anything on the internet.
I came across a video by 3M that advertised a 3M Headlight Lens Restoration System that costs the same amount as the last product I tried.
This kit falls in the same do it yourself category as the other did, only this kit was more hands on and yielded perfect results.
3M Headlight Lens Restoration System
As you will see in the pictures, the 3m headlight restoration kit made the lens of the Maxima look like brand new, and there is no clear coat film added to make it appear like they are restored. These actually are restored to like new condition. They are sanded and polished!
So if you have some yellow headlights, spend the $20 on the 3m kit at your local automotive store, follow the instructional video, and in about one hour you will have fully restored headlights. You will have saved yourself hundreds of dollars and you will be able to see farther at night.
A friend of mine recently asked if I would write a post about why I decided to get rid of my carputer system and why I chose the gps navigation system that I did to replace it with.
I decided to get rid of the carputer and switch to a gps navigation system for several reasons.
First, it was not portable, and I could not easily move it from car to truck to freinds car.
Second, I never could get it to properly sync with my cellphone so that I could have hands free calling. This was one of the main reasons for a carputer in the first place. I did manage to get it to work early on, but in order to hear the caller I had to pump up the volume then I would get this terrible bass reverberation in the car, it was madness. I tried all sorts of ‘cheap’ mics and nothing helped. I stopped useing the phone integration about a week after it was in place. I am hoping this gps navigation system that I recently won on ebay will not do the same. Continue reading →
I have always wanted to have my car windows roll down without the key having to be turned to the ON or ACC postion.
There have been many times I have went outside to roll the windows up due to rain, crack them due to heat, or whatnot and forgot my keys.
I was tired of that and finally found a hack to solve the issue. It was simpler than I had imagined.
I happen to own and Dodge Intrepid and was visiting one of my favorite forums DodgeIntrepid.net and notice that user kevin1727 hacked his windows to do this so I will share what was in the post and show you how easy it is to do and you might be able to apply this to your car as well. Continue reading →
Ok so I am writing this very simple web page to describe to everyone how I built, and put to use, a car computer aka “carpc” or “carputer” as some call it.
First let me tell you briefly how I got motivated to do such a thing.
There was a time back in 2005 I believe it was, when I traveled from Mississippi to Louisiana quite a bit, and sometimes I would see some really awful accidents
Ok so I am writing this article to describe to everyone how I built, and put to use, a car computer aka “carpc” or “carputer” as some call it.
First let me tell you briefly how I got motivated to do such a thing. …Continue Reading
that costs the same amount as the last product I tried.
