Driving at night is riskier compared to driving during the day by default. You’re immersed in an environment where you often aren’t able to see everything around you. In fact, seeing anything that isn’t covered by your beams depends on ambient lighting. Needless to say, dealing with dim headlights makes things exponentially worse.
Today we’ll cover a few ideas that could help you sort out your dim headlights. We’ll go over simple solutions and then work our way to more aggressive options.
Cloudy or Faulty Headlights – the Difference Matters
Before we start with our solutions, let’s define something. Some headlights are dim because of the failing bulbs or other hardware problems. On the other hand, some headlights are dim due to damaged housing. Figuring out which of these you’re dealing with is an important first step.
Next, we need to figure out what kind of headlights you’ve got. Are they HID, Halogen, or LED? Each of these requires a different type of maintenance, which may or may not make the solution easier.
Why do Headlights Go Dim?
Headlights go dim over time. That’s simply a fact of owning a car these days. One of the most common reasons why headlights go dim is exposure to various environmental factors. See, back in the day, car manufacturers used to build headlights out of glass.
Sure, glass isn’t the perfect choice due to its brittle nature, but glass headlights had very little issues handling UV radiation, abrasion, and other environmental effects. Modern headlights are made of various polymers that make the headlight more durable but aren’t nearly as impervious to the effects mentioned above.
When your car comes out of the factory, the headlights are treated with a protective coating. Unfortunately, this coating doesn’t last forever. Given enough use, time, and bad weather, whatever protection was there would slowly erode. Once that happens, the lights go dim.
Another reason why headlights go dim is bad bulbs themselves. HID lights can lose some of their intensity over time. The same goes for halogen lights. All that being said, what are your options when it comes to fixing dim headlights?
Polishing the Headlight
If you’ve concluded that your headlight housing is causing the issue, your only option is to get the headlight polished. We recommend using only quality polishing kits and compounds as they offer the best results. Not to mention that you’ll get the longest-lasting effects this way.
We won’t go too far into polishing your headlights as we’ve put together a complete guide just on that topic alone. However, we will tell you that polishing the headlights is only one part of the equation. The other is protecting the headlight.
The reason is simple. Once you polish the headlights, you’re essentially removing whatever factory protection was there, if any. Now that your headlight is nice and shiny again, you’ll need to apply that protective layer; otherwise, it will go back to being dim fairly soon.
There are various options when it comes to protecting the headlight. We recommend going with either a protective foil or a quality ceramics coating. Both have their pros and cons, which you can learn more about in our dedicated guide on headlight protection.
New HID bulbs
In case your headlight is shiny and perfectly transparent, the chances are that your bulbs are gone or just about to go. The only solution here is to get a new set. Even if one headlight is dim, it’s always recommended that you change your bulbs in pairs. You can always keep the working one as a spare.
Considering how expensive bulbs are in the HID OEM or Genuine range, you can always go for an aftermarket set. If you happen to own a SAAB 9-5 Aero, a set of BOSCH OEM equivalent XENON D1S bulbs will get the job done just as well as the genuine ones, only for far less money.
Getting New Headlights
Unfortunately, sometimes no amount of polishing or new bulbs will fix the issue. Although it rarely happens, you might find yourself in need of a brand-new headlight unit. Whether your wire harness is damaged or has other electrical problems going on, a new headlight will fix most of it. Depending on what car you drive, this can be expensive or cheap.
There are awesome aftermarket options out there for most makes and models. Some of these will even allow you to upgrade your factory. For example, you can get HID headlights on cars that come with halogen headlamps from the factory.
As a matter of fact, getting an HID aftermarket headlight is the right way to upgrade. Trying to convert your factory headlights to HID can lead to beam flooding in most cases, which is illegal in many places and quite dangerous for other drivers on the road.
Not to mention that a shoddy HID upgrade often leaves the wire harness damaged or overloaded. Usually, the electrical system is not capable of handling the load.
Where to Find the Right Headlight Components For your Car?
Here at eEuroparts.com, we understand the importance of bright headlights. We carry a large array of Genuine, OEM, and aftermarket headlight components for most European vehicles. If you’d like to see what we offer for your specific vehicle, simply head over to our online store and input your car’s specs into our navigation tool.
Once our system is done cringing the data, you’ll be shown a list of parts that match your vehicle. Another thing you can do is use our VIN tool. By imputing your VIN, you’ll get a much more optimized set of results. This is incredibly helpful if you drive a car with numerous iteration with subtle changes and different parts used.
If you have any questions regarding our offer of headlights and headlight accessories, feel free to get in touch with us. Our customer support team is standing by to offer assistance. You can reach us via email or via phone. We take pride in operating a customer support center that is staffed with petrol heads just like you. In other words, our people will have no trouble understanding what you’re after.
You have shared a wonderful tip here. My HID headlight is perfect now, but if something comes up I can follow the steps you have done.