Plastic Headlight cover question

[coral191]

I have wet sanded, buffed, & polished cloudy & yellowed headlight lens on several vehicles with good results, but this problem is different.

I recently bought a 2005 Ford Escape XLT 4WD. It is in great shape, except for this problem with the plastic headlight lens or covers. (it has big, squarish headlights so this is very noticeable to me & bugs me)

The headlights look they are covered with dust specks all over on the INSIDE.
I have removed the bulbs and blown into to housing with air nozzle-it is not dust. Just to prove a point, I wet sanded and buff/polished some of the outside with no difference made.

Best I can tell, it is hundreds or thousands of tiny cracks in the plastic itself. The plastic is clear, not yellow or cloudy at all
Anybody seen this before? I guess there is no fixing it, but what is it and causes this? New housings are not cheap for this vehicle
Thanks!

 

[Surrey]

Pictures???

 

[coral191]

Pictures

 

[Muscleford]

Could it be severe pitting on the outside from road dirt?

 

[adsm08]

I've seen that before. It is quite common in low quality after market lenses like the ones you appear to have. The plastic can't stand up to the heat generated by the bulbs and it gets micro-fractures in it. It causes your current issue. Go to the wreckers and find a pair of good factory housings.

 

[coral191]

Thanks, adsm08-you are probably right, I could tell the vehicle had at least one front fender that was repaired, so maybe the headlights were replaced with cheap aftermarket ones. Other than that, the repair was good & the vehicle was tight, the price was real good, so I bought it.

My main concern was if I replaced them, would this just happen again to the new ones. Wrecking yards for factory originals sounds good, because even the cheap aftermarket ones are around $140 ea.

 

[adsm08]

Thanks, adsm08-you are probably right, I could tell the vehicle had at least one front fender that was repaired, so maybe the headlights were replaced with cheap aftermarket ones. Other than that, the repair was good & the vehicle was tight, the price was real good, so I bought it.

I knew they didn't look quite right as soon as I saw the pic. I went and looked up a pic, and they are def not Ford lights. Pretty much any aftermarket ones will do that. The factory ones will too, but it takes much much longer. Most after market ones are like that in a year. I have seen OEM ones go 10+ years and be ok.

My main concern was if I replaced them, would this just happen again to the new ones. Wrecking yards for factory originals sounds good, because even the cheap aftermarket ones are around $140 ea.

That's why I said to go get JY OEMs.