That's ''progress''

I went to the store this afternoon.All those dozens and dozens of vehicles I saw with those fogged up plastic headlight lenses.My old clunkers don't have plastic lenses.Genuine glass lenses for me.Even with that dust on my glass lenses, they still look brand new. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin
Loading thread data ...

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3171.bay.webtv.net:

Yup. My niece said she tried one of those kits (I've mentioned her headlights several times, so I don't know if she just made it up or not) and got nowhere.

Has anyone here tried them? It seems to me there's no reason why they wouldn't, so long as you went down in abrasion.

Reply to
chuckcar

formatting link
|GRP2074____ I used it. Worked great and easy to do.

Reply to
MG

I have some 3M Microfinish. I take that and rub it in until it starts to get dry and gritty, and then I buff it with a buffing wheel. Works pretty good, and since I already have 2/3 of a quart, it costs me nothing.

I would imagine a $5 tin of "polishing compound" would work about the same.

Reply to
Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news:15166-4C802F98-6394@storefull-

3171.bay.webtv.net:

Not "progress", but NHTSA safety regulations.

It seems that the safety nuts are afraid that pedestrians clobbered by your ride may get sliced by headlight-glass fragments, so they mandated plastic lenses.

Reply to
Tegger

I tried one of the kits on the '96 I30. Took a lot of elbow grease and it was marginally better, but 6 months later it was right back to the same thing. There's got to be a better way.

Reply to
E. Meyer

A good excuse to use that Powerball and battery powered drill.

formatting link
cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

As far as I know plastic was never mandated in the US. Plastic shards can slice as well as glass can, especially at the forces involved in such an example.

The US has a rather cruddy headlamp regulations that shape what we get on the cars.

Reply to
Brent

I didn't use a kit, just paint stuff I had on hand and it worked great. But as time went the interval got shorter and shorter. Eventually I just bought some replacement lamps.

Reply to
Brent

I'm glad my '98 Breeze has glass headlights.. but my '01 Ram Van 2500 has plastic ones. :(

Yes that 3M products works.

I've even heard using toothpaste works, but I haven't tried it myself yet.

Reply to
m6onz5a

Headlights are now a maintenace item along with other parts of the car.. brake lines fail quite often now too.. I bet you still have your original lines on your '80's van Cuhulin.. Now brake lines are failing at 5-10 years old.

Car manufactures are doing this on purpose. It forces you to keep buying their products.

Reply to
m6onz5a

As far as I think I know, all of my vehicles still have their original factory installed brake lines.My 1914 Ford Model T is a whole nother story though.

Back in the 1970's, I traded my second hand/used 1967 Ford pickup truck in on a big old 1954 one ton Ford truck.One morning when I started that

1954 Ford truck up to go to work, the brake pedal went all the way to the floor board.The right rear brake line had rusted out. Rust Never Sleeps. cuhulin
Reply to
cuhulin

"E. Meyer" wrote in news:C8A65354.1FE9D% snipped-for-privacy@msn.com:

Did you go through *all* the abrasives?

The only thing really comparable is telescope/eyeglass making, and that takes ages manually.

Reply to
chuckcar

Some boats and aircraft have plastic/plexiglass.I wonder what those people use on those? cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

Brent wrote in news:i5ra0o$ntb$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

It appears you are right. I was taking someone else at face-value; a mistake, apparently.

The actual text of the latest FMVSS 108 I can find (2004, link above) does not mention anything about a prohibition on glass lenses, but it does specify that glass lenses do not need to meet the abrasion standards that plastic lenses are required to satisfy.

After some actual thought, I now suspect that plastic was chosen for three reasons:

1) easier to mold into the fancy and complex shapes now demanded by the designers, 2) much lighter than glass, which goes towards helping the manufacturers meet CAFE regulations, and 3) cheaper to make than glass.

Probably numbers one and two are the most dominant.

So I'm told. There is certainly a hell of a lot of terribly annoying glare with modern headlamps. Not all of that is due to my aging eyes, I'm sure.

Reply to
Tegger

Somebody swiped Jesse 'Hijack em' Jackson's Escalade.

formatting link
GOOD! cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news:15166-4C81AD94-7363@storefull-

3171.bay.webtv.net:

...and discovered that all the CDs were of Jackson's own speeches...

;^)

Reply to
Tegger

Tegger wrote in news:Xns9DE95760AC746tegger@208.90.168.18:

What? not *one* of him performing "Don't let me down hymie town"?

Reply to
chuckcar

Tegger wrote in news:Xns9DE8C771DC481tegger@208.90.168.18:

No, it isn't. I *always* go outside wearing a hat after sunset for just that reason. I tilt my head and I don't get the lights in my eyes. Bloody annoying. It's almost impossible to tell now if someone has their high beams on.

Reply to
chuckcar

Yes !

Reply to
E. Meyer

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.