This is just to record my experience with both products. I have a 2002 maxima se. The driver's headlight was cloudy only on the top portion of the lamp. The passenger's headlight had the same cloudy area but also some what appears to be tree tar or something dripping that would not come off.

I bought both on sale one weekend. The mother's powerball kit was $20 with an extra bottle of the polish. The 3m kit was $20 with a $3 mail in rebate.

I tried the mother's kit first on the driver's headlight. It comes with three sets of increasingly finer sanding pads, a "powerball" applicator for the polish and a bottle of polish (+ the extra bottle on sale). The small sanding pads were very hard to use. They are simply too small and it was very tiring to use. They did a good job of sanding but I should have sanded much, much longer. I took about 5-10 minus per pad and that was not enough. The powerball was also a bit of a pain as it tended to splatter even when I tried to avoid that. The results were definitely better than before but there was some obvious signs of sanding lines on the plastic. Again, had I taken a lot more time and effort I probably could have gotten a great finish.

I tried the 3M kit on the passenger side using a power drill. This made a huge difference. Using the drill allowed me to spend a lot more time sanding. But I also had to be a lot more careful about not letting the drill run up on to the body. Even with the tape in place the sanding pads would start to peel away the tape very quickly. This didn't happen often but its something to consider. The polish included with the 3M appears to be superior to the mother's but only time will tell. They are about the same color so they could be the exact same thing for all I know. There was less splattering with the 3M polish applicator as it was flat against the plastic.

In conclusion, the 3M kit was much better than the mother's kit entirely because of the drill attachment. Interestingly enough the mother's kit wanted wet sanding whereas the 3M kit only wanted wet sanding at the very last step. I would recommend the 3M kit and using the mother's polish to clean things up from time to time. Hope this helps.

 

I used the 3M too. Do you have before/after pics?

If not here my short lived thread with before/after pics:

http://forums.maxima.org/5th-generat...-included.html

 

I didn't think to take before and after pictures.

 

if i knew before i wouldn't buy ebay "super kit" with 1sq inch of sand paper, power tools is way to go, next time will buy 3m thx

 

at work i always sand down the headlights until the liquid drips in a creamy milky white. I hit the headlights with a yellow pad and a dab of polish then buff around it till i see the hazing clear then switch to a black pad and apply 3in1 polish and polish the remaining haze. If there is still haze then apply swirl remover and it comes off completely and looks brand new again.. it always works for me, make sure you dont get the headlight too hot but hot enough, (if that makes sense). Its hard to buff through a thick coat of plastic but remember that at the speed of a buffer, it is able to

 

i did mine yesterday, headlights and fogs came out looking like new

 

which one did you use?

 

the 3m took me a lil over an hour to knock out all 4 lights

 

the 3m worked much better i still have yet to do my fog lights with this kit but it's works awesomely well

 

I've never bothered w/the kits but a work friend used the 3m for the first time on his grand voyager and they literally look brand new...he'd never heard of the 3m kit before and had tried some others (not sure which) and was blown away. I know at Autozone,etc, they're usually in the body paint, bondo section...