How to prevent fog lights from cracking

[Asharus]

Does anyone have an effective way to prevent your fogs from taking damage? I ordered a pair of new ones, and would like to prolong their life. I travel 80 miles per day for work...

Are those protective covers effective?

[bimmerd00d]

bavarian autosport sells 3m Stoneguard, it works rather well and is unnoticeable from more than 2ft away

[shragon]

www.lamin-x.com

[Asharus]

Thanks, I ordered the clears today. Have you done business with them before?

[winfred]

i've got the bubbles and the stick on's between my two cars, i think the bubbles give a little better protection, by keeping the impact off the surface of the light, but they can yellow but are easy to replace

[Unregistered]

Spray-on Chip Guard by SEM may be a possibility. It's a urethane-based clear spray that's used to prevent rock chips in the paint on rocker panels, etc. I put it on the vertical fascia beneath my headllights, and plan to shoot some on my old, cracked fog lenses to see how it effects the brightness and projection of the light beam.

I did some research on Google looking for info on headlight and paint protection films such as Stone Guard, etc.. Reportedly, urethane-based is the way to go, as vinyl based products are said to evaporatively thin, and then yellow. (One website noted that, for example, vinyl shower curtains start out heavy but get lighter as the chemical fumes evaporate. That's why they stink when new.)

Anyhow, upon reading the SEM product website label and Chip Guard can, it seems this stuff is urethane-based and so should be resistant to evaporative thinning. Thus, it should offer good impact protection for a long time. At ~$15 per can, one could do a lot of headlights for a lot less money than paying ~$50 for a few small pre-cut scraps of 40 mil film.

Optical clarity could be an issue with a spray-on application. But, driving in the rain with water on the lenses does not seem to hurt their optical clarity, so I suspect sprayed-on Chip Guard might do the trick. We'll see.

[Unregistered]

I found this to be an interesting approach...........

http://www.bmwe34.net/e34main/upgrad...tive_cover.htm

[winfred]

the main issue is can it handle the heat

Spray-on Chip Guard by SEM may be a possibility. It's a urethane-based clear spray that's used to prevent rock chips in the paint on rocker panels, etc. I put it on the vertical fascia beneath my headllights, and plan to shoot some on my old, cracked fog lenses to see how it effects the brightness and projection of the light beam.

I did some research on Google looking for info on headlight and paint protection films such as Stone Guard, etc.. Reportedly, urethane-based is the way to go, as vinyl based products are said to evaporatively thin, and then yellow. (One website noted that, for example, vinyl shower curtains start out heavy but get lighter as the chemical fumes evaporate. That's why they stink when new.)

Anyhow, upon reading the SEM product website label and Chip Guard can, it seems this stuff is urethane-based and so should be resistant to evaporative thinning. Thus, it should offer good impact protection for a long time. At ~$15 per can, one could do a lot of headlights for a lot less money than paying ~$50 for a few small pre-cut scraps of 40 mil film.

Optical clarity could be an issue with a spray-on application. But, driving in the rain with water on the lenses does not seem to hurt their optical clarity, so I suspect sprayed-on Chip Guard might do the trick. We'll see.