Recent content by pasadena_commut

The headlights on my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid hazed over and the history of the various restoration steps is here: https://www.autopia.org/forums/auto-detailing-101-a/185235-restoring-3-sylvania-headlight-restoration.html Lately they have been looking a little yellow, and I thought it was...

We have a 1998 Accord which has spent most of its life in a nice cool garage, unfortunately for the last 3 years it has had to sit out in the sun. The headlights are not at all discolored and up until today I had never noticed any defects. So, today I washed the car. Nothing special, just a...

Three years ago I used the Sylvania Headlight Restoration kit on the yellowed headlights of my 2003 Civic Hybrid. It held up pretty well until perhaps 6 months ago at which point it started to haze over. If the headlights are wet they look great, very clear. However, once they dry out most of...

My daughter's Mazda Protege's hood is not shiny. The car is dark blue but the hood looks like it is dirty, even though it is not, and has no shine to it. It also does not feel smooth, sort of like a clean chalkboard or 2000 grit sandpaper. There is no overt peeling of the clear coat. This...

Hopefully this falls under "detailing". The ceiling liner on my 2003 Civic hybrid has peeled off for about an inch at the back edge where it meets the top of the back window. It does this only at the center of the car for about two feet total in width, not extending to the pillars. In the...

Today the dealer "temporary ID sticker", which the previous owner had left in place for 7 years, was scraped off the inside of the windshield with a razorblade. I got all of the sticker and paper, and most of the adhesive, but the silly thing was placed very low and forward, and it is very hard...

The folks on this list use a very diverse set of chemicals for cleaning their cars, all of which, along with road filth, end up on the towels at the end. So how do you get the towels clean so that they can be used again? Some of that stuff will come off with regular laundry soap, but...

Presently when washing our cars I use a regular garden spray nozzle, which does not have enough oomph to blast all of the dirt off the surface, even at the hardest setting and close range. In truth, the prerinse only takes off the most loosely bound dirt, and gets the car wet, so that later...

The new used car had its first bath this weekend, and once the muck was off about 20 pinprick sized black holes in the paint at the leading edge of the hood were seen. Other than that the clean car only presented a couple of small paint chips in other locations. The car lived near some fields...

I just bought a used Civic which the seller had paid somebody to detail. The result is a really shiny dashboard and shiny vinyl trim at the top/side of the doors (just below the windows). They also put something on the steering wheel that makes it feel a little slippery. For the finishing...