Hi All,
I’m coming from a 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee where it takes about 15 minutes and $80 to replace OEM Halogen headlights with good old eBay aftermarkets so please forgive my first stupid-long post just looking for help.
After wrecking my Jeep, I found (and jumped on) a great deal on a white, mint condition 2008 Altima SE 3.5 with 37,000 miles on it and the first thing my OCD brain focused on was the typical oxidation and surface fog/scratches for a car with so few miles on it. My “problem” is that it’s only on the TOP third of both headlights, The FRONT of the lights look brand new - so much so that even the dealership said they didn’t want to use their BG kit to do the entire light because it would be a shame to remove the rest of what looks like the OEM coating. They didn’t even try to sell me lights - pleasant surprise for me!
Before I went to them, though, I found these on eBay:
They looked pretty cool and not much money, but then I read about removing the entire bumper to replace - WHAT?!!! That’s how I ended up at the dealership asking about cleaning and that’s also when I first learned I had HID. Great, now I have OCD as well as HID. They showed me how they took a sec to light up and were whiter than the fogs and high beams – also said they ran about $800 a piece just for the assembly (versus $159 for the aftermarket Halogen set on eBay)!
After waaaaaaaaay too much time searching forums and researching cleaning kits and/or replacement options, I still don’t know what I have – factory HID, an aftermarket kit or something else. This is the article that really screwed me up: http://ijdmtoy.com/BLOG/wordpress/2014/ ... t-hid-kit/
My lights DO look BRIGHT white but not a perfect line like the pictures on that site, making me think they are aftermarkets. I also don’t see any writing on the headlamps anywhere that would tell me model, type, etc. and, at this point, I still don’t even know the difference between projector, reflector, HID, Xenon, CCFL, etc. so I have no idea what my options are. Here’s a shot of the front followed by a shot of the top to show how crappy the top looks:
Anyone able to tell me what these are?
[Close up of the bulbs if that helps]
RESTORING: If these are factory HIDs, am I stuck with trying to clean only the top half (if that’s even a possibility)? Do I sand/polish the whole light or just wait until they completely turn to crap?
REPLACING: I would loved to have been able to buy those “black” eBay Halogens and have brand new lights with that kind of look but I don’t think they’ll work from everything I read. Since cleaning is really only a temp fix, I’m not afraid to put “some” money into cool replacements, but again don’t know what my options are.
Thanks in advance – much appreciated!