My 23 Macan S has just little over 3k miles on. Until now I could clean the headlights with glass cleaner and microfiber cloth and would get crystal clear headlights. Today as I was warming up the car for my wife to leave, the lights were on and I noticed there was some dust on the headlights. I tried to clean them as usual and noticed both headlights were full of small dots which I could not get rid of. I mean the car has just 3k miles and most of it are city miles. Where are these dots coming from? Do you guys have the same with your headlights? Is a way to clean those without any sanding?

 

Can you post any photos?

 

I haven't seen anything like what you describe on mine. although it would help to have a good pic or two. Since the car is under warranty don't try to remove it using any kind of abrasive or harsh chemicals. You don't need the dealer turning it around and blaming you for it.

 

The dots could be minor pits from road debris.

 

I can't imagine, car was mostly driven in the city and has only 3k miles. Also, the dots are distributed all over evenly, which is less likely to be caused by road debris. It is raining outside, waiting to clear up to take some pics and post it.

 

Is it on both sides? Any stains on your hood or other paint? Hate to say it, but you could have been sprayed by some vehicle in front of you leaking chemicals of some sort. But in that case it would be on your paint as well.

 

Yes it is on both sides but the paint is flawless. The entire car including the headlights is ceramic coated so I don't know if this has anything to do with any of this.

 

How reliable is your ceramics co. if you used one? I had a ceramics fail resulting from faulty application leading to spots/blotches on a Cayenne windscreen I was never able to fully remove.

 

Honestly I don't know. I paid almost $2k for it and the guy who did it was a an excellent sales person (our stuff is the best and we are the best sort of a guy). But I just noticed the only PPF they had done on my car (language strip) has developed nasty air bubbles. I am glad didn't have them do the PPF of the entire car. With that being said, when they PPF starts to fail after few month, how well is their ceramic coating going to last? I mean they gave me 7 years warranty but still, PPF shouldn't start to fail after 6 or 7 months.

 

Not a good sign. But the PPF, if recently applied, can be removed and new material applied. I stayed away from PPF on my headlights because Porsche claims that any film applied to the headlights voids the warranty. So I had ceramic coating only to the headlights.

 

Interesting - noticed that I have some dust on the inside of the lights on my 2021. Doesnt affect the lights spread and coverage, but looks a bit crap. Being very picky, but is it possible to actually clean the lens on the inside? We have the PLDS+ lights. Dont want to make things worse, but the 3 year warranty is running out in Feb.

 

It's "probably" not worth the hassle or risk, but a way to clean them without disassembly is to use a pure 99.9% electronics grade cleaning alcohol. You need to remove the headlamp assembly and then pour the alcohol into the housing, enough to be able to swish around, then pour it out and let it all evaporate for a few hours before re-installing.

I did this on another vehicle with 99.99% methanol IIRC and it worked. I also created a mini flexible swiffer-like device to insert through the bulb orfice to physically wipe the inside. I don' think that's possible with the Macan headlight design but I haven't looked into it much. There is a risk that the alcohol may affect chrome finishes or other parts which is why I don't think its worth the risk unless you have a spare to test it on first. When I did it on another vehicle, I had a spare, tested it, and it worked with no adverse effects.

 

I'd be carefull with methanol. It definitely will craze some plastics, esp polycarbonates. I think IPA (isopropyl) is safer, even at 90% purity levels. If you can get away with 70%, that is even safer as the more water content the less the propensity to attack plastics.

 

I would recommend you do not pour alcohol in your headlights. It will remove the chrome coating on the plastic inside of the light. That advice is better suited to 1980's e-codes...

 

That is simply not true to make a blanket statement that it will happen. I've done it with modern headlights with no issues but I did test it on a spare set ahead of time to ensure no issues. If someone wants to do this bad enough, they can try to source a "for parts" unit from ebay or elsewhere and try it out. I rebuilt a few headlamps and modified the projector housings, I used to have a lot of stuff laying around but I think I tossed it since. If I can find anything it would be fun to see which types of alcohol has x effect over x period of time.