I have a 97 that had yellow and cloudy headlights, so I bought the sylvania headlight kit to fix it. It worked really well, and I wanted to show the before and after pictures. I am very happy with the way they turned out. The kit also includes a UV coating so the lights should not yellow for a while. I spent about an hour total including removing and installing the trim pieces. It was very easy to do the sanding with the trim removed.

They didn't seem too yellow, but when you spray the cleaner in the kit, it looks like the yellowing melts right off. You can see the after pic, you can see the silver reflector again! The lights at night are much better now.

 

does that use a polishing/buffing compound to polish out the scratches and embedded road dirt.

i buffed polished mine a couple times with compound but interested in the UV block chemical ap.

 

Yes the Sylvania kit uses multiple grades of wet sandpaper before moving on to a finer polishing paste. The stung points of the Sylvania kit vs the cheaper lame kits is the cleaner solution, and the UV blocking clear coat.

 

I purchased new headlights instead. The cloudiness is inside also, so no kit will do a thorough job unless you can separate the lens from the housing. On the same subject, I can't believe how the entire auto industry (European, Asian, & Domestic) has gone into these crappy 1-piece headlamp plastic-lens assemblies, which sell for 10 times the cost of glass lamps and they are worthless like, shall we say. plastic? Sorry, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

Yeah, I have not tried polishing my '97 yet, but it is obvious its on the inside. I plan on buying new ones and then applying Sylvania's clear coat over the factory one before installing them to help ensure they stay nice. My '94 polished up ok, but I never used the Sylvania kit on it.

I will have to restore the ones on my 'T-bird, they cannot be replaced with new.

 

Jose, that was my gripe as well; almost all the newer cars are now coming with a plastic cover over the headlights. The 92 and up Aerostars have the flush mounted plastic lenses with the focusing optics molded on the inside of the lens, while the newer cars have recessed lights and clear plastic covers. They will all start fogging up after a couple years of use. You can polish them once or twice before the damage goes below the surface of the plastic. Once that kind of damage sets in, no amount of polishing will restore them. There are some cars that come with glass lenses that won't fog up, but they're usually the high-end luxury cars, like Benz.

 

Well I certainly don't like the plastic either, but just try to buy a car with real glass lights now. Really, who thought this was a good idea for any car, but why make the change on the aeros? It is almost no difference in style. Is it cheaper? The bulbs are the same price if not more.

 

Thats because if you polish them without replacing the damaged clearcoat, you have effectively stripped away any protection the headlight had left. The Sylvania kit replaces the damaged clearcoat, and if done properly, you should never have to polish them again in the near future.

 

Having no UV protection at all probably hastened the deterioration. But I know that the stuff comes off slowly, allowing the damage to build up to the point where you see it. Each time it happens, the damage reaches a little deeper. Re-applying sun block will help preserve it a little longer, but the sun wins eventually.

 

whatever the reasons are for manufacturers to go plastic, has created a new racket industry called "plastic lens polishing", which is exactly that: a racket which fools people into believing they can "restore" their headlamps to "like new". The racketeering consists of not letting them know they cannot get behind the lens where half of the problem is. Clearly, there is nothing like Glass for headlamps. There ought to be a law but we're all a bunch of fools who complain a lot and do nothing about the stuff that affects us. But wait there's more!, I think it was Congress who mandated Plastic Headlamps!

 

You can believe what you want, sometimes the damage does go deeper, depends on how long they were neglected. Usually the problem is that the factory clearcoat wears off, (repeated rock and sand impacts takes its toll too), allowing the headlamp to be left vulnerable. Also polycarbonate, which the lenses are made from is slightly porous, allowing small particles like fine dust, pollen, etc. to get embedded in the surface if it is not sealed.

If the headlight is not too far gone, they can be restored and maintained to a like new condition. I can take a picture of my Taurus, almost two years after I first polished them. The restoration literally made them look new, and two years later, they still look new. I did the same on my Ford Focus, and so far they are not fading at all, I did them last summer.

The main benefits of polycarbonate headlights versus glass.

Extreme impact can shatter a glass lamp, glass on the highways can be a hazard to people and other vehicles.
Glass is difficult and expensive to form into aerodynamic shapes, and the CAFE standards required that vehicles become more aerodynamic.
A polycarbonate housing can more easily be formed into a housing that can have a removable replaceable bulb
Automakers don't have to design their cars around the available headlight designs, they can instead design housings that help give the car its shape.

Glass has its obvious benefits too the main ones being that it is impervious to most chemicals and is unaffected by sunlight. But the expense and drawbacks apparently exceeded the benefits, so glass housings are only used on expensive cars. Most of these expensive cars are designed in such a way that they don't need aerodynamic headlights, or they are vehicles subject to luxury tax anyway. Another drawback is that the whole headlight has to be replaced when it burns out.

On the Aerostar, having plastic headlights is to a large extent a moot point, the vehicle is not aerodynamic. But I have looked into converting to the older glass housings before, there are really no benefits to doing so.

 

let me know if you find a way to separate the lens cleanly without cracking it, then the job can be done completely.

 

maybe the headlight design engineers will start using cell phone "Gorilla Glass"

 

Jose, funny you should ask.

One of the first problems I encountered with the headlights on my 87 Mustang was that they leaked. On closer examination, the leaks were from the joint between the front lens and reflector housing. Using a sharp knife, I was able to separate the lens from the housing. I cleaned off everything and used RTV to glue the lens back onto the housing. That worked for a few months until the plastic released itself from the RTV. I tried gluing the lens a couple more times with various other goop, and it never held. So I actually had a hard time keeping the lens sealed to the housing. Maybe they're sealed better today.

So glass housings will not leak like that. They will be heavier and more expensive, but it's going to keep shining for a lot longer than the plastic housing. And I've seen many glass headlights with pretty complicated shapes, like on Porsche's and Benz's. I've also seen plenty of them on chap cars, like an old Hyundai Excel. Heck, even the 60's vintage VWs had glass bubble in front of their head lights.

 

Jose, you can see from my pictures that the light looks like new. I was very skeptical myself, but had read about the sylvania kit on this board. I wanted to show others my work hoping it would help. I have seen nasty headlights that this may not help, and I suppose it depends on how long it has been without the UV coating. You can see newer cars where the UV coating is peeling off. Part looks brand new, but the other half is already yellowing.