Scratch X results
 

Hey I know I showed my tooth paste on head light results and the tread was somewhat successful so I'm going to show you my results with MEGUIAR'S Scratch X, I think the results were disappointing, keep your $6...
And I'm going to show both the head lights, since I did the other, take a look:
any suggestions on how to get out bad scratches for cheap?
Want me to keep posting results of things like this or is it useless for this specific web site (since its a MPG website and not a car cleaning website)

Go ahead, keep posting, this is interesting stuff :)

If only my lights were fogged up to need toothpasting.

Have you tried the Scratch X on your teeth yet???:D

I really need to clean up my headlights but I haven't been able to get to it.

I used to use SoftScrub on old camera lenses. Available in supermarkets in the cleaning section. It was a gentle enough abrasive that it would not scratch the glass. It did buff out very fine imperfections on the glass surface.

Use 600 grit emery paper, THEN polish them. It works better. ...Headlights, not yer teeth.

I need to do my headlights, too. Nice and yellow right now.

MEGUIAR'S Scratch X only works on minor scratches in the clear coat. I have a tube of it and it doesn't work on the deeper scratches. My fiance's brother said to use fingernail polish. One coat of color matching and a couple coats of clear. I am planning on doing it to cover all of the scratches and gouges from hauling kayaks on the roof rack. If you do it, let me know how you did it and how well it works.

Yeah I have heard of the fingernail polish but the last owner of this car must have had a cat that loved the car as much as I love it, There are very deep scratches all over the car, too many to individually cover with polish.

I am assuming your headlight covers are plastic, if so you picked up the wrong megs product, scratch x is meant for removing minor scratches/swirls in clearcoated paintwork. To be honest the before/after pics are pretty impressive for scratch x used by hand, though i don't know what kind of applicator pad you applied the scratch x with, as the abrasive nature of the applicator might hinder or improve your effort.
If your lamps are glass then it's even more impressive since it's much harder to remove defects in glass than clearcoated paintwork, you would need a proper glass polish to proceed in any further efforts, even something like Autoglym Glass Polish would be better.

I wouldn't say scratch x is crap, it's good at what it's meant to do, but you can only get limited results when using products by hand rather than machine. Don't throw it away you can use it on other things like mobile phone screens or any other HARD plastic (not flat screen tv's and the like), and a clearcoared/lacquered surface like a kitchen worktop.

Megs also sell a product called PlastX which is designed specially for cleaning up plastics. Here is a thread on a car detailing site of PlastX being used after flattening with sandpaper.
Audi headlight reconditioning by wetsanding and Rotary
I do realise it is being used on a rotary polisher, but you can replace that with a decent applicator pad and some elbow grease, though i doubt hand application would remove sandpaper marks.
By the way i recommend that forum for advice on other matters, the guide section has some very useful information on washing technique, polishing methods and techniques and a lot of professional detailers post there details in the showroom/studio sub forums.

If you want near factory condition lights by hand application of products you won't succeed, i would say 50-60% correction tops, you could go the machine route and get a cheap silverline random orbit sander/polisher or a rotary one if you are used to machines of that nature.

Looking at the paintwork pics, are those black marks actually scratches?
If they are scratches that have penetrated the clear and colour coats then no amount of polishing will remove them, most of the time if you can feel the scratch when running your fingernail over it then it won't polish out, though you can lessen it's obviousiness.

Reply to katana
 

The before and after pictures look good because it actually did do a good job polishing the car and removing a lot of grime that did not come off with just washing the car. The way I applied it was just with squiring it straight on the car and rubbing it in with a rag until it was mostly off, then I went and cleaned the car again to get any residue off. I actually liked how good it polished the car and am thinking about just using it on the whole car like a wax and letting it take those impossibly small scratches out of my clear coat or whatever. And by the way I love the results of the toothpaste results, I don't think that my headlights need a better job and I wasn't going for factory, just not so dang hazy.