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With the lights on you can see the swirls. I would image if you spend enough time it would be mostly gone. Cracks are still there.
I’m guessing the shop doing mine has pro products and experience to remove it all but the actual CRACKS. I’ll post pics in a few weeks once they’re done. 👍🏼
Here's the otherside for comparison. Had 11k miles with no protective film. It has some pitting as you can see. I put the clearbra on when I get the car at 11k miles. Note even with the swirls, the renovated side headlight is clearer than the pitted side. This is the other side which hasn't delaminated (yet) the UV layer.
Here's the otherside for comparison. Had 11k miles with no protective film. It has some pitting as you can see. I put the clearbra on when I get the car at 11k miles. Note even with the swirls, the renovated side headlight is clearer than the pitted side. This is the other side which hasn't delaminated (yet) the UV layer.
Even with the swirl marks it looks clearer than before. I’m feeling better about the shop doing mine. Thanks again.
In conclusion - if you don't put the Xpel on it will get pitted, especially if you're going to track your car. If you put the Xpel on it could delaminate the UV film but I think the UV film more likely to delaminate if you have to take the Xpel film off rather than putting it on (assuming you have a good Xpel guy). At least that's my experience.
Final conclusion, Porsche has some poor quality headlight construction. This has happened on all the Porsches I've had - 996TT, 997.1TT, 997.2TT, 987 CaymanS, 718 CaymanS and now 991GT3. I've tracked all of my Porsches. I do think it has to do with the tracking whether it's the heat, high speed, vibration causing the cracking. Not sure. The bumper pushing on the lens causing the cracking makes some sense but I don't see any wear or scratches on the bumper. I still can't completely explain the cracking. The UV delaminating I can see - heat buildup trapped by the Xpel film can cause the UV layer to delaminate from the lens and then when you pull off the Xpel the delaminated UV film comes off with the Xpel.
If done properly and with care, I think you can still get an acceptable result by sanding down the lens, polishing it and putting Xpel on the lens. I'm going to continue to track the car with the restored lens and when I go to sell the car I'll put on the new/used lens that I just bought.
Hope that helps some of you going through this process. Too bad Porsche doesn't seem to want to fix this problem. Maybe I just need to track something other than a Porsche?
BTW here's the delamination after the Xpel was pulled off. Between the 2 arrows is an area where the UV film is off. Everything to the left of the image has the UV layer intact. It's microns thin but sticks up which has to be sanded down to get the the plastic lens. And the UV film is hard and tenacious to sand off.
Any chance you have a link to this? My '17 has film on the headlights and now I'm concerned.
Sorry I don't. I trust my guy, and I can assure you he was doing my whole front end and telling me to not apply Xpel to the lenses meant less money for him. If your car is under warranty you can fight to get it covered. It's Porsche's problem. But if you put Expel on then you are SOL. They will blame that.
Sorry I don't. I trust my guy, and I can assure you he was doing my whole front end and telling me to not apply Xpel to the lenses meant less money for him. If your car is under warranty you can fight to get it covered. It's Porsche's problem. But if you put Expel on then you are SOL. They will blame that.
I didn’t have Xpel and they blamed me. So, if you are out of warranty you might as well save the wasted time and energy, they will say it’s not their fault.
Hey 911T, so to be clear, both of these pictures are of your headlights and they both looked like this before you sanded them. I can't tell from the picture if the one you show finished started in the same condition as the passenger side.
Thanks!
Originally Posted by 911TurboRules
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:
Hey 911T, so to be clear, both of these pictures are of your headlights and they both looked like this before you sanded them. I can't tell from the picture if the one you show finished started in the same condition as the passenger side.
Thanks!
PBG, The top photo is not my headlight the bottom photo is my headlight. I was trying to show the top headlight has cracks in the center of the lens. The bottom photo is my headlight showing the cracks at the corner of the headlight which I believe is a different phenomenon than the top photo.
PBG, The top photo is not my headlight the bottom photo is my headlight. I was trying to show the top headlight has cracks in the center of the lens. The bottom photo is my headlight showing the cracks at the corner of the headlight which I believe is a different phenomenon than the top photo.
Gotcha. So you didn't have any of the cracking in the UV lamination? I had the Xpel film applied to mine after the detailer was to have removed the UV but I think they may have been a little hesitant to sand very far and you could still see the exact same damage through the film. I think I have decided to remove the film, sand them to my liking then have the film reapplied. And in removing it I can see how easy the lamination comes off the headlight. It's literally like it was barely adhered to the plastic and once the film was applied, it stuck to the UV obviously, then quite easily broke loose from the plastic and the expel took very little effort to remove because at that point I was separating the UV from the plastic, not the film from the UV or plastic. I've seen videos of it being removed and it was NOT as hard as the videos showed. There are huge tears in the lamination but I can see it should be fairly easy to remove the rest and have the film reapplied. This was just a learning experience for both me and the detailer.
PBG, that's exactly what happened to me. I noticed the Clearbra peeling on a corner of the headlight after a track weekend. Took it back to the shop to have it replaced. They started taking off the Clearbra and parts of the UV laminate came off with the Clearbra. They tried putting a new Clearbra back on but it started peeling off again - we think the new Clearbra was pulling off more areas of the UV laminate so it wasn't sticking. So I had them take the Clearbra off and I tried to sand down the rest of the lens that still had the UV laminate (which was still a lot of area). I just sanded it with the 3M headlight restoration kit (500, 800, 1500 and rubbing compound grits) but it did not take off the UV laminate. I went to (220, 320, 500, 800, 1000, 1500, 3000, rubbing compound and polishing compound) which eventually took the UV laminate off. Took me about 5 hours! and it still left swirl marks from the sand paper. I guess I needed to spend more time with the intermediate grits? Hopefully someone has figured out a better way to get the UV laminate off than sanding it down. Maybe more heat? Maybe try sticking the Xpel on and repeatedly pulling it off in hopes it grabs on to the UV laminate pulling it off the headlight? Also, once it's sanded down there's still a significant haze on the lens. You have to put Clearbra over it to clear it up. I think there is still micro areas of roughness which makes the haze look and the Clearbra adhesive liquid fills in these rough areas and makes it look clear again. You might be disappointed (like I was) after spending 5 hours on 1 headlight and it's still hazy. I think if done right (spending more time with the grits) the swirl marks would be gone and you'd be left with this light haze - which goes away when you put on the new Clearbra.
On a side note the cracks on the edges of the lens did not go away after sanding it down. Again, I think the cracks on the edges are a different defect not (directly) related to the laminate.
I have a headlight that has the same spiderweb cracks or appearance of cracks. However, I'm not sure why I would mess with it. Other than cosmetic, I don't the value in wasting time trying to correct it. As the issue already exists on a CPO car I just purchased, I might as well wrap the headlights and ignore it. It's almost a 5 year old car, afterall.
I have a headlight that has the same spiderweb cracks or appearance of cracks. However, I'm not sure why I would mess with it. Other than cosmetic, I don't the value in wasting time trying to correct it. As the issue already exists on a CPO car I just purchased, I might as well wrap the headlights and ignore it. It's almost a 5 year old car, afterall.
IF you plan to leave it, it WILL get worse. If you plan to wrap them, prepare for the wrap to come off or at the very least pull the coating off under it and begin to look even worse. That's kinda the whole point of this thread. The damage will and does get worse and the only remedy that I see is removing the coating and apply the "wrap" ClearBra" "Xpel" or whatever choice you choose, to apply UV protection to the lens. If the damage didn't get worse than it was when I found it, I would also just let it go. But it IS continuing to get worse.
10-11-2020, 07:58 PM
