Review: Griots Ceramic Headlight Restoration Kit, Severe

I've got a 2006 Toyota Matrix as a commuter car and its headlights have been abused! At one point i put Lamin-X film on them and when i took it off, it left a layer of glue on the clear lenses. I tried every product to get the glue off, but ended up scraping the shit out of them with a credit card and goo-gone. They have been wet sanded using the 3M kits probably 3 times, and used polishing compound and a polisher to try to keep them clear. Guaranteed there isn't any UV coating left.
I've had the Cerakote headlight kits in my Amazon cart for a while but never pulled the trigger. I was walking through pepboys and scored 2 of these bad boys that use Cerakote.


I thought that i would try it on the Matrix first before i attempted to use it on the tundra.
There's a good video on the Griots site on how to use it.
https://www.griotsgarage.com/produc...oration+kit+severe.do?sortby=ourPicks&from=fn

I started out by masking the light


Then i used the Oxidation remover in a hatch pattern, and that wipe was orange by the time i was done.


Then did a wet sand with 1000 grit. In the video they said to use passes that run in the direction of the longest part of your headlight, so i used diagonal passes. I ended up sanding until the water coming off was clear, about 3-5min for each grit.


Then did the same with 2000 and finally 3000


Now it was time for the magic. While wearing gloves, pull the Cerakote wipe out and do the same direction passes using a 50% overlap with each pass. Its really tempting to go over the lens multiple times, but dont, it will leave streaks. One and done.


Now it is in no means perfect, but like i said these headlights have been abused. I'm happy with the results, so i'll go ahead and use the other kit on the Tundra.
The left headlight turned out better


Now with the tundra, i was getting some bad oxidation on the tops of the headlights. It didn't really feel rough to the touch, but running a microfiber over it you could tell it needed some TLC.



Same process as before. Started off with the oxidation remover. I didn't pull nearly as much oxidation off the tundras headlights as i did on the matrix. I didn't get a picture of after the oxidation remover, but it didn't really make a difference.
After 1000 grit


Then the 2000


and finally the 3000


Its amazing how well the Cerakote does with filling in the scratches and making it nicely clear. Before you throw away the Cerakote wipe, go through and make sure you have 100% coverage. On both of the tundra's lights i had missed a small spot and had to pull the wipe out of the garbage can quickly.


I think the tundras lights came out better, but they hasn't been as abused as the matrix's had. Very happy with the results. Its supposed to last a lifetime, but i'll keep updating as time goes.

 

Nice write up.

 

Thanks. I'll be interested to see how this holds up over time.

 

Thanks for doing this. I was looking at a similar ceramic headlight kit. My plan was much like yours. I was going to do my tundra before my wife's gx. I'll sand down and polish my mostly flat tundra headlights any day before redoing the gx lights that are more like your tundra. Just in case I screw it up.

 

In reality, the only things you need to watch out for is not sanding in a circular pattern, and only doing one pass with the cerakote. It's really tempting to try to coat the piss out of them, but after you do one pass it really wants to streak.

 

I just used the Cerakote on my 2008 Tundra with fogged polycarbonate lenses (that had been previously cleaned). See this post:
https://www.tundras.com/threads/wha...2nd-gen-tundra-today.68/page-328#post-2238642

 

It looks like basically the same kit. Did it really come with that many oxidation remover wipes?
How has the cerakote held up?

 

It did come with 8 oxidation removing wipes. It has held up fabulously in the 24 hours since I did it. We will see long term.

 

Ohh, I didnt see the timestamp, thought you did it a while ago.

Thats a crazy amount of wipes.

 

Cerakote includes 2 grits of sandpaper (2000 and 3000 I think). I spent lots of time on the sanding because I did not think it would work very well on those old headlights. $20 was a lot cheaper than new lights.

 

Dang, they turned out great. Nice retrofit jobs too.

 

Great write up Daniel! Thanks for sharing your results. The Tundra lights do seem to show better results than the Matrix. Maybe the Matrix ones were too far gone to get perfect?

I’ve tried a couple of different techniques over the years. While the restoration went well, they always went back to looking foggy again within a year. Looking forward to seeing how long the Cerakote lasts. Hopefully it holds up better than others I’ve tried.

If it works as well as their trim kits do, then I’m definitely on board to try it out next time I get some bad headlights. Great work!

 

By the way, have you looked at putting some decals on your Pro grill letters? I think they add a nice pop to the grill.

 

Thanks!
I've tried the 3M sanding/coating kit, the Mothers polishing one that comes with a ball attachment and some compound, and some other random coatings that i found (on the Matrix, hadn't done anything to the tundra)....none of them lasted very long at all....maybe a month or two. The drivers side of the matrix has always looked a little foggier than the other after polishing, i think it may have some dust on the inside of the lens when i did the retrofit. I'm waiting to see how things settle with permanent or semi-permanent working from home to see if i even need a commuter car anymore. Would be sad to see her go, we've been through a lot together. lol

They say that's it guaranteed to last as long as you own the vehicle, part of me thinks that's just marketing bs, but I'm optimistic that it will last a long time. I'll try to post an update after every few washes to get some data points.

Have you used the Cerakote Trim wipes on a pro grille? It seems like its made of a different type of plastic than the plastic on the front/rear bumper or the bed runners. My pro grille is still fine, but my front/rear bumper trims and bed runners could use a little tlc, and i'm worried if i use it on everything but the pro grille it will make it look bad.

Those do look good! I hadn't really thought of doing that.

 

I haven’t tried it on a grill yet, for no other reason than I almost never clean them thoroughly enough to try it.

 

Curious why you took off the Lamin-X.

 

It didn't really turn out that well, and then i wasn't getting a clean cutoff from the projectors so i pulled them off.

 

The top of my Tacoma headlight has the same oxidation that yours had. When I was polishing last weekend, I just let the polisher dip down onto the headlight a little and it cleared it right up. Now you got me thinking I need to do this like ASAP.

 

Do it! My headlights are still looking great!

 

4 months isn't that long of a sample, but I suppose you would likely have seen some return of the oxidation on the top of the lights otherwise.

 

Yeah i plan on doing a 6mo/12mo follow up with some good post wash pics, but we aren't there quite yet.

The matrix's headlights would start to haze/yellow after about a month before, they are still lookin good!

 

Griots makes some nice products, appreciate the write up.

 

Its about 6 months. Any update?

 

Once it gets light out, I'll take some update pics

 

10 days and no light.

...sorry, I struggle to disable the sarcasm sometimes.

 

Haha. My bad, have had some cold rainy weather here.

Gimme a min and I'll snap some picture.

 

Headlight look pretty good, some light pitting/scratching on the top corners.

 

Ahhh, I miss the good ol' glass headlights. I too have used various products with varying results. As you've described, some lasted a couple of months (I have had better luck with tooth paste than some name-brand goodies) to just about 18 months before hazing was enough to annoy me. Polycarbonate is going to haze no matter what unless the vehicle spends its entire life in a UV protected garage. Prep work and taking the time to do the job right will yield longer lasting results but not a 'as long as you own the vehicle' result. Unless of course you plan on selling within 18 months

 

Well after about 13ish months, i'm starting to see the same oxidation/fade on the tops of the headlights like before.




I'll probably reach out to Griots and see what they say.

Edit: Griots responded ridiculously fast and are sending another kit out. I'll keep updating this thread with the re-do

 

That doesn’t surprise me. I would expect similar results with the new kit. I have tried different ceramic coatings on headlights and always end up in the same place.