slicky rick

just wanted to share my frustrations with our headlights.. just like the bumper and hood my P-car is, in my mind, the only car i had that accumulated so much chips on those plastic headlight lenses in such a short period of time. so much care on all the exterior items but cannot do much for those headlight lens chips. i know there are the protection films that one should install immediately after bringing the car out of the showroom but man porsche should have just sticked to glass! my old s class still has beautiful sparkling headlight lenses. what is really frustrating is i have a mitsubishi SUV and the lenses are still clear without the chips... i guess the speed and the lowness of the P-car.. i wish there was a way to get rid of the chips short of changing the whole headlight assy. i hope we dont go into the glass vs plastic weight advantage that is not the point of my frustration...its the headlight chips... grrrr.

Alstoy

You bring up a good point. I've noticed a few chips on mine too. Been thinking about trying one of those "scratch off" applications. I'm sure there are others out there that have tried it. Will tell you this though, my next Porsche will get the clear-bra treatment.

PHDX2

I installed this film...

http://www.xpel.com/products/headlight_protection.asp

...when I bought my car and the headlights continue to look perfect. Easy to install, crystal clear, excellent protection. Highly recommended.

mdrums

I also use xpel film...I weekly drive my car and track it a lot so my front bumper and headlights shows lots of pits....oh well it's just a car and I really enjoy using it...it can be repainted if needed.

Frino

Have 3m clear bra covers on all front lights...no chips or issues.

utkinpol

I have no idea for quality but I think it will last a season of DEs and for $12 it is an OK buy.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Edgy01

Be very careful about polishing that plastic. You will wear off the UV protection and the lenses will turn yellow at an accelerated rate.

slicky rick

I totally agree with those headlight protectors but one has to install it immediately to get protect those headlights in their as new form. I drove mine a few thousand kms so it alrewdy has those stone chips on the headlight lenses which i see e eryime i clean my car. So frustrating. So much cheaper tobrespray bumper and hod to remove stone chips therebbut to replace the headlights would be rediculous. Is that true Dan that polishing wil remove uv protection any suggestions on what procedure to folow to get.rid of the chips and stil have the protection?

mdrums

Anyone know if Mequires or 3M headlight polish will hurt the lens....and will this polish remove the stone chips on the lens????? I'm not sure that this store bought polish actually removes stone chips?

philooo

may be if you polish them and add the Xpel protector right after... does the Xpel film protect from UV ? may be a tinted one ...

slicky rick

been searching the web and i fully understand now what dan is saying regarding the uv protection. he is totally right. i will try to post some recently discovered sites that could help us understand headliht lenses more.

johnwb

I used the Mequires headlight polish kit on my mother in-law's Ford Taurus and it worked great. Her headlights had clouded and yellowed. The polish did a great job of clearing the lens up but it is not aggressive enough to remove real chips.

slicky rick

stone chips need to be sanded out. Yes brothers sanded out. they have some articles at autopia.org that could help.essentially what has to be done is to sand the damages out. however as dan mentioned the uv protection will be removed and the yellowing will accelerate, so the good fixes should have uv protection reapplied. this is usually done best by spraying on a new coat of uv protection. the cheap repairs essentioally just removes the yellowed portion. thats it. if the plastic yellows again remove again until there is no more plastic to remove.

PJorgen

Is there consensus as to the best headlight protection film? Is 3M or Xpel about the same or is one better than the other?

XPEL

Our 30 mil headlamp film does provide UV protection and will prevent either new or recently polished lenses from clouding and discoloring.

Our 30 mil headlamp film is a purpose made product for headlamp protection. There are three big essentials on a film like this.

1) It should be scratch resistant
2) It should provide UV protection to the lens
3) It has to NOT interfere with the pattern of the headlamp beam

Our film is the only film on the market that has a patented scratch resistant coating. It will take years of abuse. Also keep in mind, paint protection films (as many use to protect headlamps) are designed to be UV clear. If they weren't, when you took off your bra years down the road, the paint under the film would be darker than the film everywhere else. Lastly, our film is the only press-polished film on the market. Press polishing takes a film that would otherwise have some surface texture to it and renders it 100% smooth. This prevents the film from interfering with the pattern of the headlamps. Otherwise that nice pretty pattern on the road that enhances your ability to see at night isn't going to be so pretty anymore.