Hi. In both of my cars, a 2000 Altima & a 2001 Grand Caravan, the headlight lamps are getting clouded over from the insode. What causes this and how can I clean them?
On the INSIDE? They are plastic junk, what do you expect? You can “restore” the outside with toothpaste or special products made for that purpose. Your friendly parts store has several products that MAY help. But the final solution is to replace the headlight buckets.If they are full of water, remove the bulbs and dry them out with a blow-drier…
The quality and performance of todays headlamps is a joke. The old sealed beams did MUCH better. That’s why big trucks still use them…
If it actually is the inside, and not the outside, then moisture has gotten in. Each car is different as to how to get in there to clean them and possible reseal them. I don’t know about your cars.
However, are you sure it is on the inside. The plastic and even some of the glass headlights tend to get sand blasted over time on the outside and look cloudy. If it is the outside you can try one of several solutions.
Tooth paste. Just keep rubbing and it should polish them.
The auto parts stores usually have a kit to clean them or you can try a plastic polish from the same store designed to restore/polish the plastic windows in convertibles.
Then you can also replace them for more than you might believe $$$$
Good Luck
Yeah, it’s probably oxidation and scratched on the outside of the headlight lens. Same thing happened to my cars, toothpaste works really well, but it’s temporary. Meguiar’s PlastX, though, works amazing! Makes old yellow lenses look brand new!
I have a 96 caravan and it also is clouded on the inside, not on the outside, It appears to cut the light brightness by nearly half, as I have to drive with high beams on all the time to have any hope of seeing anything. I tried to buff the outside, it buffed out the outer distortions but you can clearly tell its on the inside of the light, I looked into replacing the lights but they want an insane amount of money for them, junk yard lights are also clouded so no luck there either, someone advised to add a little water and scrub with some sort of pipe cleaner and then dry completely, I haven’t been ambitious enough to try that yet.
I agree with you. In fact, I think that this business of headlights becoming cloudy as a vehicle ages should be looked into by the National Highway Safety and Traffic Administration (NHSTA). Either a recall should be issued, or the manufacturers should supply new headlight buckets at a reasonable price. This is a safety factor.
I have a 96 caravan and it also is clouded on the inside, not on the outside, It appears to cut the light brightness by nearly half, as I have to drive with high beams on all the time to have any hope of seeing anything.
If they are really that bad I would replace them regardless of cost.
Same problem here, I think they were nearly $400 a piece for something that will fog again in a couple of years, instead I installed high intensity bulbs and a set of driving lights on the bumper, it costed less than $100 instead of $800
If your state has “safety inspections” it seems reasonable that very cloudy headlights would be cause for failing. BTW, I found the dodge headlight assembly for under $100 (took about 5 minutes):