The headlights on my dad's 2003 Camry has yellowed up really bad and I can barely see anything when I'm driving it at night. I'm thinking about buying a restoration kit for it or just replacing the entire headlight assemblies. I like the look of some aftermarket for the Gen 5 and 5.5. I just wanna know if I should buy aftermarket headlights or just replace them with OEMs. Oh and can someone tell me which headlight restoration kit is the most effective? Thank you in advance for the helps.
I've been hearing that aftermarkets headlights are crap but what's so bad about them? I know everyone say they're bad but no one says why or how they're bad.
I have the option racing one but in blacked out housing. Bought it three years ago. The quality of the build is bad on mines(short mount point for top bracket. The projector pattern sucks. And the halo glow is dim, it uses regular bulbs to light up the halos which is a bummer.
any aftermarket headlight is bad.... the composite types have refectors made by idiots so the light pattern is often scattered all over; on projector types the light can be a bit more even but is often very dim and sometimes dont come with a internal shield to create a light cut-off
also many headlights with "halo rings" or cheezy extra lighting often burn out
your best bet is a headlight restoration..... you can do it yourself at about $20..... i recommend the 3M system that uses a drill; you can also have it professionally done at many detailing or body shops normally costing $50+
if you want to go with new headlamps, go with OEM; i went on toyotapartseast.com and they have them for about $445
All good advice. Avoid aftermarket. I would buy a polishing kit. I like the 3M kit with the buffing pad that attaches to a power drill. In your case you should remove the whole assembly and do a kitchen table job on them. Sand first, course to fine and then the polishing compound. Trying to do this on the car and do a good job with a housing that is badly weathered is asking too much out of duct or masking tape. Then you have the pride of knowing you brought them back from the dead.
It is fine to do a retrofit if you don't want to touch your OEM headlights. I did a retrofit on my Depo headlights (still have OEM ones), and they are excellent (no leak, no condensation). However, I'm not sure the halos will work because I don't know how they are wired. To me, halos don't look good on non-BMW cars.
If you are retrofitting the aftermarket ones, you're kinda wasting your time. But if you like the look of the aftermarket, then buy the one you like. Even if you ask the sellers for a picture of the light output, they will not send you real pictures. Buy it, mount it, or test your aftermarket HL with HID bulbs. The ones on mines required H1 bulbs, both low beam n high beam. I'm currently just using one while the passenger side headlight has been disassembled for me to put new halo Audi style led rings and super bright led strip. Some will boooo at me for making the aftermarket headlights ricey maybe. But my focus was to brighten up the whole headlight overall with super white LEDs.
The pattern given out by my headlight is not like anyone else's HIDs (sucksballs) so maybe if the headlight I'm working with holds up perfectly, I'll do an FX35 projector retrofit.......... next year.
If you are questioning how the output is, look at is as an obtuse angle of 130 degrees. I'll see if I can take a pic and upload it later for viewing.
-Bizeek
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