Headlights Crazing. Suggestions on fix?

Trade it in? I mean your truck is 3 years old shipmate. It won't look new forever.

 

^^^this

 

Maybe I’ll trade it in for the new Honda Ridgeline.

I know it’s three years old, but jolly rogers does Father Time move its way in.

 

Thanks for the input. Next time I wash and wax my truck I’ll apply a layer onto the headlights too.

 

Wax my headlights every time I hit the body. No crazing.

 

Waxing your headlights certainly won't hurt them but there's no scientific evidence showing that wax will actually help preserve them. The big problem is that once the lenses are visibly degraded the lighting efficacy has also been degraded to an unsafe level - and unsafe from both the driver's point of view and from an oncoming driver's point of view, and no amount of polishing is going to completely fix that. There are some studies that have shown that even with the best polishing you only get to about 75 percent of where the lens was when it was new and once you've polished it once, you'll be doing it on a regular basis for as long as you own the lights. None of the polishing kits have any sort of annealing process which the factory lenses have to give them a super hardened outer surface. Once that's gone, so are your lights and the only real solution is to replace them with new factory units.

 

My understanding is waxing the plastic, clear coated lenses of your headlights fills in all the tiny scratches that expose the edge of the clear coat and the plastic underneath to the atmosphere. While I have no scientific data, admittedly, about my own headlights, I know that they wax up beautifully, smooth, clear, and shiny, and with my truck parked outside all the time I have no crazing or yellowing or hazing, so far (truck bought early 2017). For the cost of a capful of wax, I’m gonna keep doing it.

 

in my case the polymer effort with Jet Seal application was not about protecting from what you're mentioning here. it's plastic after all and doesn't have a super long life. i use Jet Seal to prevent yellowing from UV exposure. when i say 'so far so good' that is what i'm referring to specifically.

 

Mine were doing this also. I just warrantied them a few months ago, even outside of warranty (44k miles) Toyota let me do it and wanted my old headlights.

 

The degradation of the polycarbonate lenses comes from both heat and U.V. light. Heat from the inside and light from the outside. I'm thinking that any UV protection from a thin coating of wax or other something else is going to be minimal at best and not very long lasting either. It does seem that most modern headlight lenses seem to go maybe 5-7 years before they start to show degradation, so for many, that's effectively kicking the can down the road. Not my problem anymore, but all you have to do is walk down any street anywhere and you'll see a significant percentage of the parked cars with headlights that would be quite ineffective. Hell, even my old glass Cibié's, Hellas and Bosch on various cars eventually got pitted from road debris but those were all fairly inexpensive to replace, unlike today's quite expensive proprietary designs.

 

Both the coating on your headlights and your paint, (whether it is single stage or base coat/clear coat), degrade from environmental factors, one of the biggest contributing factors being UV exposure. Waxes, Sealants, Coatings, Etc...All help to preserve the surface they are applied to by protecting the surface from exposure to things like environmental contaminants, mechanical abrasion on a small level, sunlight, hard water spots from water drying on the surfaces. If exposed to sunlight and other factors, paint, plastic, etc... begin to oxidize and break down from UV exposure. IDK what your standard for scientific evidence is but cars have been around for a while and the standard practices of washing, waxing/sealing/etc..., applying protectants to plastics, all seem to be proven.

There probably isn't a published scientific study that sticking your junk in a can of rusty nails won't feel good, but I don't think anyone needs much proof to say don't do it.

Also, comparing actual headlight restoration methods to a DIY polishing kit you get for $30 at a parts store is apples to oranges.

Finally, Annealing does not harden the outer layer of the lense, Annealing relieves internal stress in the lense from the manufacturing process in order to lessen the chances of stress cracking. the outer coating is essentially a specialty clear coat that is meant to be very resistant to UV degradation. There are aftermarket solutions to re-coat headlights, 2k clear coat is also commonly used.

 

Idk man. Have u used those diy kits? They work pretty fuckin well.

 

Check out dem headlights.

 

Warranty the headlights if you can. I did.

 

Thank you everyone for your waxing headlights support. I never claimed to be a headlight expert, just commenting something that seemed to help the appearance of said lights.

 

the 3M one has worked well for me in the past, and I will snag them on clearance just for the consumables, but I am referring to removing the headlights, sanding or soda blasting away all oxidized plastic, wet-sanding to 3 or 5k grit, and recoating with something like 2K clear or SEM solaray. Even performing the sanding/polishing method with the right tools instead of a cordless drill makes a good bit of difference with less time invested.

 

My Gen 2 headlights lasted about 5 years before they started Crazing.
Trying this out on my Gen 3 headlights. We'll see what happens.

 

Yeah the ones with the 3m trizac (3000 grit) work really really well. Basically all the other ones (trutle wax etc) are garbage. Coupled w a can of headlight clear coat, works great. I do em on the car, less than an hour and ship it down the road!

 

That's what I did on my Taco and any vehicle I owned since 2003. This is the ONLY way to protect headlights from wear, sandblasting and UV damage. I usually use Xpel for the thickness of their film, but I think they recently switched to a thinner film probably for cost savings.

 

This happened to my SpyderAuto headlights. I replaced them with Morimoto's and called it a day lol