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If you track a car the front of the car just gets rashed up including the windshield. Every couple years I have to replace the windshield even if it's not cracked because there's a lot of little chips that makes the windshield more hazy looking. So that's why I put the Xpel on the headlights. Side effect is if not done right you can have cracking of the middle of the lens from the UV layer delaminating. But if you don't cover it you still have to replace it because of the rashes.
I'm not convinced that the cracking on the edges of the lens is delamination. There are plastic chips breaking away from the edge of the lens. That's more than delamination of the UV film on the headlight.
To me, this is delamination - center of the lens, UV film delaminating. The plastic lens is not cracking, just the surface layer:
The cracking looks much different and location is on the edge of the lens:
Well, after bringing this topic back into my consciousness and reading so many others thoughts about it, I decided to REALLY take a look at this problem on the headlights. I initially thought it was literally tiny cracks through to the inside BUT after looking tonight with an LED flashlight, I believe you are CORRECT and that it is in fact JUST the UV coating delaminating from the outer surface of the lens. Albeit in different ways it delaminates based on where it is on the lens. I can see a reflection on the back surface of the lens of the tiny "webs" if you will and of the larger areas on the edges. The bigger ones on the edges are clearly tears in the coating, but they do NOT go all the way through the lens in any of the defects. You can tell it is just a reflection on the back side of the lens. THIS is a good thing if anything about this issue can be called good because it means the headlight lens material itself is fine. My thoughts NOW are, as some have done, remove the outer UV coating with the typical process but once done and re-polished, have Lamin-x or SOME kind of high quality UV PPF applied. I almost wonder if the heat of the Bi-Xenon headlights could be a contributing factor. It would also be interesting to know if anyone who has the base halogen headlights that are standard on the base Boxster/Cayman, is having the issue.
I've had mine wrapped for 4 1/2 years, zero problems, countless rock saves though!
Well you might want to notify Xpel this is nonsense then, they seem to think differently.
Whether the film is a contributing factor or a casualty of the already delaminating UV coating, it IS a thing whether you've had it happen yet or not. One case out of millions they install is not conclusive proof.
I tried hard to find these cracks on my headlights but to no avail. Hopefully it’s not a matter of luck. Then again my car has been garage kept and driven very little for 4 years prior to me obtaining it So perhaps this issue simply hasn’t yet reared it’s ugly ahead. Fingers crossed!
My car is garaged any day I am not driving it, it is not my daily driver and garaged all winter from November to March at least. It is 6 years old and just turned over 30,000 miles so mileage and/or time in the sun appear to have little to do with it. Also, I do not live in Florida, Texas or Arizona where one might associate high temps to damage to cars.
Well, I have an appointment with my local Xpel installer to strip as much of the UV from the headlights and replace with Xpel film. He said this is not a new problem from Porsche and it goes back many generations. I had never heard that so can't speak to its accuracy. The install has no warranty and he said there is a 25% chance it COULD do it again, but for $250, I could do it 10x for what the dealer wants to replace them and with no guarantee the OE replacements won't do it again too. I dunno what the dealer replacement parts warranty is, but my guess it's not worth the paper it's written on if they won't cover them now and consider it "cosmetic" damage, they won't cover them later when they ultimately fail again. Heh! Cosmetic damage on a car that is 6 years old and 30k miles....let that sink in a sec. I have a 90k mile VW R32 that the headlights look new. I have another VW that I replaced the headlight assemblies at about 125k miles and 10 years of daily driving and numerous road trips across the country. So Porsche has engineered and produces one of the most advanced EVs on the market, continue to astound us with the turbo and drivetrain technology, but they just can't crack the code on plastic headlights that can last more than 6 years of light use? Unreal...
So to sum up...let me think, $250 for 25% chance it will do it again, or $3000 to have a PRETTY high likelihood the NEW ones will do it again?(I have read this has happened to others) Let's say the Xpel lasts only 5 years like the OE headlights did, I will be 103 years old before I spend $3000 and more importantly before I give Porsche $3000 for a complete failure of their engineering skill and acknowledging and backing up what they know is a failure. I realize, these are farmed out to a supplier but ultimately Porsche is responsible for the quality...well, Porsche SHOULD be responsible for the quality. Apparently it joins the long list of failures that do not exist inside Porsche's reality distortion machine. You know, the one that runs on human emotions and life long dreams?
We'll see how they turn out but I can't imagine them being any worse.
Update. I had my clearbra guy take off the old Xpel film and put on a new film. Turns out the Xpel film pull off the UV layer around the lens so when they pulled off the old Xpel it tore off the UV layer in some areas making the headlight pretty much done. So I decided to sand it down with the 3M headlight restoration kit. Probably 20% of the UV layer delaminated and I still had 80% I had to sand off. The 3M kit has a 500/800/3000 grit sand paper and 3M rubbing compound. The 500 just wouldn't take off the remaining UV layer. It's tenacious. So I went down to 220 and went up to 320/500/800/3000/5000 rubbing compound and polishing compound. Got the UV layer off. Even going through the series of sand paper grits it still left swirl marks. Took me about 4 hours going through this process. Perhaps I can go through the sanding series even longer to get rid of the swirl marks but the light brightness is clear except you see the swirl marks. The the clearbra guy put on a new Xpel film which got rid of the haze and swirl marks for the most part but with the lights on you can see the swirls.
So I've learned that the cracks on the edges are not related to the UV layer. I sanded it on the edges past the UV layer and the cracks are still there. It's cracked! The headlight restoration can work but you'll have to take a lot of time to go through the grits uniformly and then you'll probably get it to look good with a new Xpel film on. Without the Xpel film it just looks hazy even going down to the polishing compound.
I looked around for a new headlight and lucked out and found one on Facebook Market place of all places. Will have my clearbra guy put on the Xpel on the new used headlight.
Note the jagged clear line going left and right on the image - that's the UV layer borders. Everything above that line is still the UV layer intact needing to be sanded off.
Update. I had my clearbra guy take off the old Xpel film and put on a new film. Turns out the Xpel film pull off the UV layer around the lens so when they pulled off the old Xpel it tore off the UV layer in some areas making the headlight pretty much done. So I decided to sand it down with the 3M headlight restoration kit. Probably 20% of the UV layer delaminated and I still had 80% I had to sand off. The 3M kit has a 500/800/3000 grit sand paper and 3M rubbing compound. The 500 just wouldn't take off the remaining UV layer. It's tenacious. So I went down to 220 and went up to 320/500/800/3000/5000 rubbing compound and polishing compound. Got the UV layer off. Even going through the series of sand paper grits it still left swirl marks. Took me about 4 hours going through this process. Perhaps I can go through the sanding series even longer to get rid of the swirl marks but the light brightness is clear except you see the swirl marks. The the clearbra guy put on a new Xpel film which got rid of the haze and swirl marks for the most part but with the lights on you can see the swirls.
So I've learned that the cracks on the edges are not related to the UV layer. I sanded it on the edges past the UV layer and the cracks are still there. It's cracked! The headlight restoration can work but you'll have to take a lot of time to go through the grits uniformly and then you'll probably get it to look good with a new Xpel film on. Without the Xpel film it just looks hazy even going down to the polishing compound.
I looked around for a new headlight and lucked out and found one on Facebook Market place of all places. Will have my clearbra guy put on the Xpel on the new used headlight.
Some photos to follow:
Sounds like I’m glad they are doing it. My guy told me I have one crack on the edge that will not come out because it is a CRACK but the film will fill it in some.
09-29-2020, 11:25 PM
