Brightening and Straigten up Headlights!

Well In recent days felt that headlights are getting darker or virtually no effect on visbility of road. How I felt it? Just plain simple, when you level front of the car up with another car, you'll felt how much you're lacking on the light, don't even throw any comparison with projector headlamps, it'll seemed l am driving in the dark!

Alright so I first upgraded my bulb, I think its a 7 years old bulb to Osram Nightbreaker Unlimited. So the following are the specs:

• Up to 110 % more light on the road for fatigue-free and comfortable driving
• A light cone up to 40 meters longer for better visibility and significantly longer response times
• Up to 20 % whiter light via partial cobalt coating of the glass bod
• More efficient generation of light thanks to optimized noble filler gas formula
• Higher resistance due to robust filament design
• Eye-catching design with partial blue coating and silver dome
• The most powerful OSRAM halogen automotive lamp

Alright I admit the brightness is indeed up and colour temperature of the light has been considerably higher as well. Thanks to the cobalt coating for the whiteness, and it's totally visible when on highbeam as the part of filament which lights up will be directly shine through the blue coated area. The spread of the light gets much better compared to the stock 7 years old bulb. The 40m might be a bit or marketing gimmick, probably easily obtained with better headlamp design or projector based headlamp, but the distance that I can catch perhaps extended just a bit.

Whilst it might had been a huge upgrade onto my wallet, costing probably 8 times as expensive compared to normal bulbs, the returns I expected is not as high though. I do not blame the bulb much too as the reflector design of the headlamp housing is ancient as well, in 1980's probably they're the best designed headlamps.

I then begin to realize the headlamps had gotten much unusual with the foggy surface. As the lamp is plastic, or poly carbonate its called, they're prone to fogging up for no reason. Yeap you might think it's just some dirty car but your guess is wrong, car shampoo or whatever you threw at it, the fog is there and seemed like "etched" the surface of the headlamp itself, effectively blocking light output from the tiny essential light you needed to stay on road.

 

A short trip to local stores Ace Hardware will reveal many products catered for such issue. The famous branded Meguiars and TurtleWax, to brands like Soft99, Abro and even RainX, which claims to restore your headlight into new and mint condition. And the price will slap you far back, ranging from individual headlamp polish about RM28 - RM50, to kit-based headlamp renewal up to RM173! I looked through few of them, which spots similar instructions, and decided I should get the kit type with polish and protector.

Why should I opt for kits type? Well the kits type, which is normally more expensive, will come with the headlamp polish, and whats more important in the pack is probably the protector. Basic principle of plastic headlamps getting fogged is because of oxidation from ultraviolet rays. A new headlamp would normally came coated with some sort of protective coating on the exterior of the headlamp, to protect the headlamp from oxidation. However due to age and probably severe environmental conditions such as dust, acidic rain, contaminants and working temperature of the headlamp, the coating may gradually runs off and oxidation starts taking place, and you'll be greeted by this:

 

A layer of fog seemed to had just formed out of no where in front of the headlamp. And yes you can feel the "fog" with your fingers running over it. The surface is uneven and feels corroded as well. The headlamp polish will supposed to remove off the layer of oxidation and it should shine clear and bright again. Another interesting question that i have in mind is, yeap you'd just cleared off the oxidation AND the protective coatings of the headlamp itself! Wouldn't this makes the headlamp even more susceptible to oxidation? A simple google again will reveal lots of frustrated users where they often polish their headlamps in months and even weeks to maintain the clarity. Well, if such i'll just leave my headlamps as it would be, or I could consider a kit with protective coatings available, or consider extra budget of whooping RM800 for original pairs of headlamp.

I then head over to local grocery stores, greeted with bunch of I would say, class B or class C products. They range from local brands such as FormaHero, Magic and some familiar local brands that you can find at any groceries. I finally settled with Waxco Lens Restorer and Treatment as it comes with a kit of headlamp polish and UV protector as well, which is what I initially wanted and wouldn't cost me a bomb, about RM23 as compared to other brands with standalone polish would already cost RM12-RM18.

And that's what my RM23 got me. A headlamp lens restorer, a UV protector, a Waxco proud owner sticker, 2 pieces of cloth which feels like normal polishing cloths, 2 pieces of yellow conventional kitchen sponge, also 2 pieces of probably Royal Gold 3 ply tissue paper. Waxco did I get the brand right lol? Price wise i'll say its worth as the kit comes with 2 bottles of soluions, not mentioning the extra cost that might had been incurred for polishing clothes, sponges and... yea the tissue too.

Then, on a fine day, I decided to put the solution to use. The following picture will show more of the fog prior to any treatment:

It's hazy as hell from this perspective. I started placing masking tape around the edges of the headlamp to avoid me from "polishing" the car paint as well. And from the first try, the results is surprising!

The first try had made a rather conclusive results, it works! It's less than a 3 minutes buff and those are what you get. However I wasn't much satisfied as there are still some hazy area around so I decided to give a good elbow grease on it. Afterall the product instructions says, apply with FORCE, I would suggest pressure as the word though. These are after my second trial:

This time the results are slightly better, just slightly, not as prominent as the first try. Now I can even read my bulbs specifications from the headlamp itself! The results are simply amazing!

Have a look at the comparison:

So I then proceeded to another side of the headlamp:

And some elbow grease with my left hand now, my right hand already give up rocking the car (yes that's how strong the force should be!):

 Greeted by much better headlamps now, with legible headlamps specifications:

It is noted that during my intense wiping and rubbing process, there is still some remaining haze no matter how much or how hard you wiped over it. Perhaps that's the limit of the product, or maybe the limit of the polishing cloth, where sandpaper would be probably needed. Well I decided not to go any further at this point as the results are already satisfying, just not perfect enough.

Also the application polish is polish-like colour and scent, however it is thicker which you can't shake the bottle as like polish. The solution also seems to be thocker when compared to polish on hand, yet compared to scratch remover paste-like compound, its much thinner and smoother.

After deciding that's really enough of car rocking, I then applied the second solution, the UV protector. The liquid pours out like some kind of oil-based product, feels watery, and probably alcohol based as it seemed to be a little evaporative. Using the sponge provided, I applied the UV protector in up to down motion as on the instructions:

I then left the protector to soak for about 2 minutes and started wiping off the coating with a tissue. I also soaked my DRL with the protector, hopefully will get better protection. I used a facial tissue from Scott instead, the provided 3 ply tissue is more suitable for my sweaty hands and face I think?

And what you get afterwards is just the results of restored gorgeous look of the car!

Well that's enough of it, notice the slight uneven headlamp on the right? It's due to small collision that I had before and one of the critical mounting points of the headlamp broke. And that's after fixing it, better than let it dangling though. Prior to this the headlights are skyrocketing the drivers opposite or in front of me, yet drivers still failed to observe me LOL. Maybe my headlamp visible wavelength all shoot to sky instead?

The way of fixing it is rather simple as i'm a cable-tie guy, as well as many mechanics and body shops workers. I got myself a drill and drilled a 3mm hole just sufficient for the cable tie to pass through, and tied towards a piece of metal at the back of the headlamp mounting. It's a 5 minutes fix for me, but identifying the place to drill and holding force took up lots of my time prior to this.

That's all for today! More practical mods coming soon!