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Do I need to buy two items to cover both headlights?
No. All of our lighting kits are sold as matching sets. I.e. A set of headlight covers will cover both headlights.
Can I order a combo package in two different materials? I.E. Clear for the headlights and GT Yellow for the fog lights?
No. All of our combo packages are only available as matched sets (i.e. all must be the same material). There can be some added efficiency in production on multiple pieces, and we pass the savings along to you in our packages! If you would like to mix and match materials you would need to order each set individually.
Does the material block UV?
The materials do contain UV inhibitors, but the reason your headlight will fog up / did fog up is not usually do to UV on its own. All headlights come with a hard protective UV coating from the factory. The problem starts when you drive your vehicle without a lighting protection film applied to the lights. Over time sand and road debris chip the hard coating the headlights came with and the sun starts to break down the polycarbonate. This process happens slowly, little by little. So slow you don’t notice it until it is too late.
If you then sand down and polish the lamp and return the clarity you must protect the lamp from both exposure to the atmosphere and UV otherwise you will have the fogginess return. While you could use some sort of polymer sealant they typically do not last that long and of course will do nothing again further pitting – and pitting was the root cause of the cloudy / foggy lens.
Your best course of action is to protect the lens with our lighting protection kits!
What are your overlays made from?
Please don't confuse our line of lighting protection kits with simple vinyl overlays or window tint. Ours are designed for protection as well as stunning looks! Vinyl overlays are most often made from 2-3mil sign vinyl, offering next to nothing in terms of protection and certainly will not have the lifespan of our products. As a point in comparison the copy paper we use in 4mil thick! Some use window tint, which is designed for the inside of the vehicle.
What are your lens protection /covers made from?
Most of our kits are available in our new line of tinted lighting protection film - available in HID Blue (shines bright white), GT Yellow (as seen on all the Porsche's running at LeMans), and Smoke (great for show cars). Our tinted line is manufactured from our heavy-duty premium 15mil thick material for excellent durability and strength! All of our clear lighting kits are manufactured from our heavy-duty premium 15mil thick material for excellent durability and strength! If you see somebody offering 8mil film- this is paint protection film (clear bra material) and not designed for lights.
What percentages are your smoked kits available in?
Our Light Smoke is ~50%, our Standard Smoke is ~30% and our darkest Stealth Smoke is ~20%. See all about tint here for a more in depth explanation of tints.
I have looked at the photos of the colored protection kits. It seems like all of the photos have a slightly different color/tint, why is that?
Our lens covers are pretty hard to photograph. Depending on the characteristics of the lens and the color of the vehicle the cover will look darker/lighter. Overall environmental lighting conditions will also effect how the combination of lens and colored covers will photograph. Add the fact you are looking at these photos over the internet - plus the wide variety of computer monitor color balance, the lens covers will take on a variety of qualities. When you go TV shopping at Best Buy and look at the wall of TV's all playing the same video feed, almost no two will look the same. The same thing can happen with cameras and monitors.
Are they removable?
Yes they are fully removable but they can only be used once. Removal is straight forward. Start by warming the material a bit with a hairdryer and then pick at a corner with your fingers and then slowly peel off - making sure to hold onto the light firmly during the process.You may or may not have left over adhesive on the lens. Leftover adhesive can be rubbed off or carefully removed with an adhesive cleaner.
How are they installed?
They are installed in a manner similar to installing vinyl graphics and clear bras. You 'float them' and then squeegee out the liquid. See our DIY install pages here
Should I / Do I have to remove my lights from the vehicle or remove the bumper cover to install the kits?
No. While it might be possible to install our kits with the lights off the vehicle it will make the application at least twice as hard and it will
make alignment difficult as all of our kits are designed to be applied with the lights on the vehicle, and in the case of the headlights, with the hood closed.
Removing the bumper cover is also not necessary to install our fog light protection kits or our smoked taillight kits. Again all items are designed for
application with the bumper covers in place. No need to disassemble your new vehicle.
See our DIY install pages here
Can I install them myself?
While we do recognize that some kits can be challenging to install, they are designed to be consumer installable.
It really depends on your ability, confidence, and patience along with the contours of your lights. Take a look at the lights you are looking to protect,
the strength of the contours and depth / number of steep angles will dictate the challenge level of the install. Our films are softened and quite pliable,
easing the install. If you do not feel comfortable installing them yourself you might want to seek out the help of a friend or a use a different solution.
How long does it take to install these protection kits / covers?
Typical install times can vary widely with installer proficiency, and the difficulty of the install. A simple set of fogs can be done in a few minutes after the vehicle is prepped. The most challenging headlight or taillight kit may take a half an hour or more per light.
With the taillight covers installed will people still be able to see my taillights and brake lights?
Yes, our Smoke covers look dark during the daytime but still allow the reflectors and brake lights to be fully functional! If you were to follow a vehicle with our standard smoked tails in traffic at night- without knowing if they were tinted or not- you would probably be hard pressed to pick it out given the wide range of taillight styles and intensities these days.
Couldn't I just paint may taillights with a $10 can of VHT Nightshades or stained glass spray paint from the hobby shop?
While you certainly could, paint is permanent, difficult to get a 'perfect' finish, has time consuming prep, strictly prohibited in most states, and permanent. According to VHT "Warning: Once applied to a plastic lens, VHT Nite-Shades™ cannot be satisfactorily removed. For off-road use only." If you wish to return your painted lenses to stock, you MIGHT be able to wet-sand, or chemically strip the paint off, but in most cases you would need to buy replacement lights - very expensive.
After I installed them there are a few areas around the edge that I am having a hard time getting to stick. What to do?
In most cases this can be fixed. Prepare a mix of 90% hot water and 10% rubbing alcohol in a cup. Warm the lifting spot with a hairdryer. Wet your finger in the alcohol solution and then wet the adhesive side of the lifted are with your wet finger. Next wrap you squeegee with a detail cloth and press and hold the squeegee to the lifted area for a minute or two with firm pressure. After a few minutes the edge should be re-set. If there is even a mm hanging off the edge, trim it off with a very sharp razor knife, using the squeegee as a guide to hold the edge down. Even a tiny bit hanging off an edge will make the area prone to lifting up.
After I installed them there are a few little bubbles, should I pop them?
No. Our vinyl covers are breathable. A few bubbles or some haziness is fine, as the adhesive cures these will dissipate. This can take a few days to a few weeks depending on how large they are and what the weather is like where you are.
My headlights looked great initially but now they have ‘milky spots’, what should I do / what happened?
What you are seeing is trapped moisture / condensation left over from the application process. The material is porous and does breathe. As the water from the application process evaporates these areas can develop. This is much more likely with our clear kits as the material is a little thicker than the colored material. They do clear up over time. How much time depends on how much water was left behind and the temperature & humidity during the curing process. The process can be a few days to a month or more.
How long do they last?
They are manufactured from premium lighting grade vinyl and have a useful life of ~4 years depending on how you care for them along with your environmental factors. As with all vinyl's if you are in a desert / equatorial environment you can expect the life expectancy to be cut in half and if you are in a much higher latitude you can expect a longer useful life. If you never clean and protect them they are not going to last nearly as long as if you care for them.
How do I care for them?
We recommend that you treat them with a high quality vinyl conditioner every few months, or when you regularly clean your vehicle. Just like the rest of your vehicle, if you never clean them you are certainly going to shorten their life.
Are they legal?
As they say, you should check with your state / country if you are really concerned about it. Given the tangled web of laws in the US we state they are designed for off road use. We have never had a problem with running our HID Blue headlight covers as they shine bright white, and of course our clear covers are generally unnoticeable.
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