success with Meguiar's PlastX

chris0626

New member
I had an awesome experience with Meguiar’s PlastX today. Pulled the taillight lenses off the ’70 Karmann Ghia, figuring I could polish them up a bit. (I'd guess nobody has paid attention to the taillight lenses in the past 34 years. :( ) Here’s what happened after polishing one of them. (Can you tell which is polished? :D )



3936plastx1.jpg




What did I use? First, washed them with diluted Megs APC+. Then polished with Meguiar’s PlastX. Somebody suggested a while back that foam cosmetic sponges would be useful for working in small areas, so I bought some and tried them on this job; but the sponge started breaking-up immediately – it just wasn’t sturdy enough for this job. So I switched to a tiny (thanks, BradB!) microfiber for the polishing/abrasion, then buffed-off with one of my regular microfibers. As Mike Phillips had warned me, it took a lot of elbow grease -- I used so much pressure/force that I had to be careful not to crack the plastic! But the results were overwhelming to me. Then, just for good measure, I finished-up with Mother’s Plastic Polish, then a spritz-clean with Novus. The PlastX took off the heavy grunge, but there’s no doubt the Mothers and Novus made the lens shinier.



I’m fairly impressed with the results. Hope you can tell which one is treated in this shot, and which is still untouched.



3936plastx2-med.jpg




One thing that most impressed me was how this treatment cleaned-up the yellowed “clear� section of the lenses. The difference in the red was quite dramatic, but the difference in the "clear" section -- while subtle -- was still apparent to me. I’m afraid this shot is not quite clear enough to show the difference that I perceived, but I hope you can see some difference.



3936plastx3-med.jpg
 
I have used their plastic detailing kit polish cleaner and so on... Workd GREAT and it looks as though this might work just as well and its cheaper. Looks great have to get my bottle!
 
Great Job! Just a thought...did you do anything to the inside of the lense to maybe promote better light transfer through it? I bet the inside isn't quite as bad as the outside, but there could be some haziness inside. That just might make the lights appear a little brighter.



Great Idea, I should bring parts from my car back home so I can do some cleaning on them...just you watch, I'll start with a tail light or two, then I'll have all the lights at my house...after that I'll have a door and fender sitting in my room, then when I have the exterior pieces removed, I'll strip the interior to clean it up.



lol, I don't see myself going that far, but hey, who knows?

Kevin
 
Yes, Kevin, I did treat the insides of the lenses -- used exactly the same procedure inside as on the exterior: PlastX, then Megs Plastic Polish, then a buffer with Novus. (I would have used Plexus for that last buff/shine, but I save the "good stuff" for the Jags; the Ghia gets the leftovers. :D )
 
Gosh! Praise from Anthony O??? I'm awed!



Yep. Try the PlastX on badly-oxidized/yellowed plastic. Like Mike warned me, you gotta apply a LOT of elbow grease. But the results are quite gratifying.
 
I know this thread has been dead for several months. But last weekend I had occasion to polish the 1970 VW Karmann Ghia taillight lenses again. Then have been thru lots of abuse in the past 5 months, including sitting outside 24/7.



I first washed the car with Gold Class. Then I pulled out the Meguiar's PlastX again. This time, I didn't have to use a scary degree of pressure -- just firm, but not vicious pressure. And I only worked each lens about 5 minutes. But, again, the results were awesome.



Here are a couple of before-and-afters. I treated the left lens first, then took the "befores" (on the right side) and "afters" (on the left side) only seconds apart, so that the lighting would be equivalent, and I did my best to shoot from a similar angle. I res'ed-down and compressed the pix, but I hope you will find the shots comparable and informative.



Before PlastX:

3936plastxbefore1-med.jpg




After PlastX:

3936plastxafter1-med.jpg




Another angle. Before ...

3936plastxbefore2-med.jpg




and After ...

3936plastxafter2-med.jpg
 
Now you've got me motivated to do something about my plastic healight covers!!

Beautiful job.

Thanks for the write up.
 
Lyn,

That looks awesome, fantastic job. I have been looking locally for plastx but I have not been able to find it. Any ideas besides mail order.
 
As you all have observed, PlastX doesn't seem to be widely available in retail. Sorry. :( You might try going to the Meguiar's website to locate a retailer. In my rinky-dink, one-horse town, the local NAPA store is willing to special-order Meguiar's products for me. Good luck. :up
 
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