New to the GTI, looking for advice

[AliGTI]

Hi all. I've had my Mk5 GTI a few months now but it's looking tatty round the edges. Can anyone help?

The headlighs are looking a little worse for ware. I've used a restoration kit but thdy still don't look great. I'm in the UK so my car came with the standard lights, not the R32 style. How easy are these to upgrade to the posher R32 style? Also what have people found to be the best way to treat the faded black trim? I've seen people remove these and spray them black again but not sure if that's the best option. Please help me get my car looking mint!! :)

[Tortaruga]

Peanut butter (smooth) works well on black plastic.

Xenon lights fitted as oe, i.e with levelling sensors will take a bit of work. There must be a guide online somewhere.

[MC71]

^^^^ 

Welcome to the fold. 

[AliGTI]

Peanut butter?! Really?! I used some Auto Glym stuff but it wqs rubbish. Was on YouTube and saw some nice Chemical Guys spray on stuff but also saw a guy remove all the trim and just spray it matt black. Not sure about what to do about the lights. After some Googling it seems not straight forward with passing MOT's and stuff :(

[DrG_GTi]

Welcome.
Light - You need to sand down the lights with some high grit (2000-3000) paper with water and polish up with megs plast-rx they come up brand new with the right amount of effort
Optionally you can fit the xenons easily with wiring adapters, it's plug n play with a few vcds tweaks, you just won't get the auto levelling but easy to do manually, simples

Faded black trim, best stuff is Gtechniq C4, you will be amazed they come up factory new mate.

You are welcome ;)

[andy7ven]

I followed this video using the same materials ect came up brand new and are nearly 10 years old...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGQEHhxXYoc

Bit overkill but it worked! 

[AliGTI]

Welcome.
Light - You need to sand down the lights with some high grit (2000-3000) paper with water and polish up with megs plast-rx they come up brand new with the right amount of effort
Optionally you can fit the xenons easily with wiring adapters, it's plug n play with a few vcds tweaks, you just won't get the auto levelling but easy to do manually, simples

Faded black trim, best stuff is Gtechniq C4, you will be amazed they come up factory new mate.

You are welcome ;)

Cheers for that! I used the meguires kit which has 1000, 2000 & 3000 then the compound. It looked better but I wanted better results. I think I needed to start with a hevier grit, maybe 600 or 800.

The G tech products are good. I wasn't aware they did a trim one. I'll look out for that. I'm not liking the sound of loosing features on the light. Surely on the R32 it's all still auto????

[AliGTI]

I followed this video using the same materials ect came up brand new and are nearly 10 years old...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGQEHhxXYoc

Bit overkill but it worked! 

Hiya. When I did mine I was looking to get rid of what looked like pin pricks on the light. You can't feel any roughness but it almost looks like bubbles inside the plastic :/ What were yours like before and after?

[andy7ven]

Mine had a weird like haze in the middle of the light which got worse towards the edges...

They're as clear as anything now... I started with 2000 grit, then 2500 finishing with 3000...

I then polished using a Dual Action Polisher with Chemical Guys V34 (4" orange pad), V36 (4" green pad) then V38 (4" black pad) followed by 2 coats of Jetseal 109... The key is the prep work with the wet and dry use plenty water and use a sanding pad if possible. Also the polishing pads and V range offer different levels of cut. The wool pad and Plast-RX might not be enough to remove the defects...

The pitting is more than likely stone chips though and you won't polish these out I can still see (more when lights are on) some chip marks all this process is doing is removing the failed headlight clearcoat...