Meg Ultimate Polish for Headlight Covers

[maldulai]

Hello Team,
Backgroud story: I had water marks over large areas of my mustang exterior form washing it with well water once last summer - lesson learned never again !
I dedicated a weekend and got all of it out of painted exterior panels by using combination of ultimate compound and ultimate polish - Big WIN !

Last Area I need your help with is headlights.
What you see in the photo is water marks on headlights. They were not hazy on before I washed the car with well water.
As you may know, headlights have protective clearcoat layer to prevent lights from yellowing over time.
I want to remove the water spots without risk removing that clearcoat on the headlight.

Can I use ultimate polish on headlights to get rid of water spots, just like I did on my exterior painted panels (hood, roof doors, etc.)?
Thought of Plastix and headlight restoration, but they typically remove the headlight clearcoat layer because the assumption is the light is old and fogged out.
My headlights are new, but have water marks on them that wouldn't come off with normal washing.
What do you suggest? Ultimate polish?

[Nick Winn]

Hi maldulai,

First great job in your detailed thread explaining the situation. Also, you are thinking correctly regarding Headlight Restoration Kits, we would not recommend any of those in this situation. There are essentially two ways to approach this, with a abrasive polish/compound or chemically work to possibly remove them. Meguiar's does not offer any chemical style water spot remover at this time and I do not know of one to really recommend. Maybe others here do. Are you working by hand or machine? If machine what kind and what pads? That said, Ultimate Polish can be used in this situation without fear of fully removing the factory protective layer from the manufacturer. Ultimate Polish or even Ultimate Compound are used in this situation commonly to remove light swirls or fine scratches. If you choose to go the "polishing" route, start with Ultimate Polish, if that doesn't do it, Ultimate Compound via a yellow polishing pad could be used as well. I think these will come out much easier than working on paint, so you should not have to get too aggressive.