very clouded headlight lenses

Nov 14, 2005 7 Replies

The headlight lenses on my Town & Country mini van are so clouded that you can hardly tell that the lights are on, even with the brights on. It looks like I have to replace the whole assembly on each side because you cant get to the inside of the lenses to clean them. Any ideas ? Looks like I can get replacement parts for aprox $100 each on the internet. Are they a pain to replace? Thanks.



Try using the plastic lens polish first. I bought some at Auto Zone and it works well. It cleared the headlight lens considerably, almost to a new condition. This was several years ago, and I find that I have to re-polish the lens' once a year or so.

They are relatively painless to replace. The wife is very happy. I took my old cloudy ones and got them cleaned up enough to sell on eBay using 1500 wet sanding and lots of polishing. The new ones ended up costing under 100 for the pair that way.

They are relatively painless to replace. The wife is very happy. I took my old cloudy ones and got them cleaned up enough to sell on eBay using 1500 wet sanding and lots of polishing. The new ones ended up costing under 100 for the pair that way.

In addition to the sanding and plastic polishing that others have mentioned, you can subsequently spray them with clear coat to restore them to new clarity without having to repeat the polishing step every few weeks. When new, they had a clear coat on them - same stuff as on your paint.

To maintain the new appearance (whether you clear coat your old ones or replace with new), you might consider these:

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Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Try lemon pledge instead of polish. Seriously it works.

Because this isn't a state-controlled issue, dimwit. Geeze, it's not like this isn't brought up once a quarter by Daniel Stern in this group. Why don't you start reading some of the posts here for a change?

It's possible to get better optics and better illumination with a non-sealed beam design, and certainly bulb replacement can be made easier. The fact that most vehicle designs out of most automakers don't do this and in fact are worse than a sealed beam, is the fault of the stupid new car buyers who happily buy crap.

Ted

And they'll have a nice lemony smell! :)

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

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