The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

I used the provided wipe that came in the kit. I often use Meguires products, so in a few months I'll use that as maintenance.

 

Good to use a dedicated product. Many of those kits UV coatings don’t last very long, and once gone will rapidly degrade to worse than before the restoration.

 

That’s odd, I ordered my harness & bulbs on Jan. 9th through PayPal and received my shipping confirmation through PayPal the next day. Everything arrived not too long after. I wonder if something happened to your order and it didn’t go through properly? I actually emailed HS on Saturday because I ordered the wrong harness and I got a nice email today from Mike telling me he’d refund or exchange my harness.

 

I actually got an email reply back last night, I don't have alerts turned on for email, so I manually log in to check.
Mike said he was out of town and the harness will ship out middle of the week.
If I had waited about 3hrs more I'd have never made the post here.

 

Or, if you had never made the post here then he never would have responded????

 

finished doing the mod to my 2011, so much better than the leds I had in it.

 

hi guys. I just bought new TRD PRO headlights for my 2015. I have the harness, waiting on the OSRAM bulbs. Excited to see results!

Question: What is the recommendation for protecting my new PRO headlights from UV?

I have a bottle of this Rustoleum

$11 Rust-Oleum 334029 Painter's Touch 2X Ultra Cover Spray Paint, 12 oz, Gloss Clear

non-yellowing clearcoat. Not sure if its necessary to apply to new headlights or if there's a better product out there?

 

I don't have any specific recommendations, but I personally would prefer ones that are not permanent myself.

The headlights already have an OEM UV protective coating, so they are not going to haze anytime soon. After 10+ years the coating starts to wear and the UV starts to breakdown the plastic. Clear paint is often liked on restored headlights, since restoring the lamp removes all the UV protection leaving them totally exposed. And worst case you just sand it all off and restore again. But spraying clear on a brand new lamp... there is no saying whether that clear will outlast the OEM UV protection, or if you just shortened the lamp life by coating it in a product that will start to yellow and haze before the OEM lamp would have with its OEM UV protection. If the paint starts to yellow/haze first, your only recourse is to sand it all off and do a full headlight restoration, which is less than ideal.

If you use a non-permanent coating specifically designed to protect headlights from UV that you apply say annually like a wax, the coating protects the headlamp from UV as a 1st line of defense but then wears off over time so you are not left with the situation of having a yellowed/hazed coating permanently stuck on an otherwise good headlight. You simply just reapply it like a wax every year. Since the coating takes the brunt of the UV, but your new OEM headlights also have a UV protective coating as well, they should last an exceptionally long time. No worries about messing up the paint coat either.

 

Question: would putting a clear wrap film over the headlights help prevent degradation of the UV protection? Or keep it from hazing?

 

That makes perfect sense. I guess the paranoia that my new headlights may look like my old ones soon made me forget that the old ones are almost 10 years old. Definitely don't want to mess with the OEM protection, so non-permanent makes sense.

I usually wax my headlights when I was my car. Is this sufficient a few times a year, or was there a headlight specific wax with UV blocking/resistant properties that would work better?

 

Yes, but also can have the same risks as paint above. Those plastic wraps will likely not outlast OEM UV protection, so I wouldn't use it on a new lamp. The wraps will of course yellow and haze. If you remove them early enough, they may come off ok. But if they don't they'll destroy the headlight lens requiring you to have to sand the residue off and do a restore, which is counter productive to putting them on in the first place. Even using a a clear wrap will also take a small hit on your headlight output.

It's going to depend on the UV blocking properties of the wax you use. If your intent is to preserve the headlights as best as possible, I'd use a dedicated headlight protective product for the purpose. You can search 'headlight protectant' on google or Amazon and find a bunch of products. I'd look for one that calls out UV protection.

 

The wraps will help with rock chips and if it has UV protection it probably would help. BUT films degrade over time also.

I would avoid wax personally. Use a good sealant or ceramic coating. Wax looses clarity faster than we want to admit. When looking at sealants and coatings, make sure to look for one with UV protection. That's primarilay what causes the lens to degrade.

This is probably what I would use and simply re-apply every few month's or when you think about it. Generally I do a deep clean before and after winter, so that's when I would apply. That's just my opinion though. Now if you want a long lasting solution, you could use this. But it will be less forgiving during installation. Optimum makes phenomenal products and their lead chemist is responsible for the majority of high end coating formulations. This would be as close to adding a clear coat as you can get. To be fair, I have no personal experience with either of those products. But I have use products from both of those companies and they have always been fantastic.

 

Yeah, I figured one would have to redo the film every couple years but it might be easier than a polish and respray.

 

A protective coating would likely be easier to apply and re-apply IMO. I always have an imperfection when I do anything vinyl, it's frustrating. lol But thats just me.

The adhesive from films can be a pain to deal with and sometimes difficult to remove if left behind. The other thing is clarity. No one really knows the clarity of exterior grade vinyl films and this is where you would want to spend good money on getting the best you can, not just random Amazon clear film. While films do provide protection against road debris better due to their thickness, I just don't see it as the main selling factor.

 

I have used outdoor rated (UV stabilize high gloss polyurethane on several vehicles, and had good results. This was after sanding the lenses free of external hazing/crazing and removing the factory UV hardcoat. One vehicle, my sisters scion xB is just showing signs of failure after 4 years of outdoor parking along the coast in the carolinas. A good performance/cost tradeoff, imo.

A better choice would be multiple coats of 2k hardening clearcoat, but that requires some PPE to do safely.

There is also "LiteRight," which I have looked at in the past, which crosslinks to the polycarbonate with UV exposure (either uv light or just several days of strong sunlight exposure before using the lamps/driving the vehicle), but never purchased.

 

I will Attest to this. I had a cheap thin film when I first purchased the truck in 2011, recently removed that film. Used steam machine and some elbow grease to remove the old film.

Ended up putting some quality film from Weather Tech this time around.

I did not end up having to polish the headlights.

 

After watching this vid and considering the discussion in this thread I think I will just put apply a ceramic coating/wax annually on my new headlights once they are installed. If anyone wants to apply the clear vinyl wrap coating to protect their headlights, then the 3M wrap is the industry's best with the longest warranty and product longevity.
After watching many hours of video and reading on this subject I never came across the adhesive issue left behind once removing the film as is obvious in the above video.
However, I may still consider applying it to my 2006 Honda headlights (which are in very bad shape) once I get them sanded down and restored.
Heck I don't expect to get another 7 years of serviceable life out of her anyway (3M claims 7 year life span on their wrap)
Thanks for all the comments and responses that I have enjoyed reading.

 

Wiring harness arrived today. Excellent product and craftsmanship, installed with ease because of Mike's efforts.
I'd recommend Mike and his business to anyone that'll listen.

Thanks to crashnburn80 for his continued efforts to enlighten us.
It's greatly appreciated.

 

Let us know what you think once you have it all installed!

 

I don't understand so which currently bulbs giving best low beam brightness?