On Fri, 13 Dec 2019 19:27:10 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 13 Dec 2019 14:52:26 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote:

On Friday, December 13, 2019 at 4:35:50 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 13 Dec 2019 08:44:33 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote:

On Friday, December 13, 2019 at 8:26:22 AM UTC-5, dpb wrote:
On 12/12/2019 10:22 AM, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Thu, 12 Dec 2019 06:54:28 -0600, dpb wrote:

On 12/11/2019 7:59 PM, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 20:15:42 -0500, wrote:

On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 17:04:46 -0600, dpb wrote:

On 12/11/2019 12:55 AM, micky wrote:
...

I read an article yesterday about changing the whole light assembly,
with lens, when the lens is so cloudy it doesn't light up the road well
enough.
...

The switch from glass to plastic was a terrible move...just to save a
few ounces and maybe a few pennies.

With gravel roads it's impossible to keep any clear more than a year or
so. The UV damage is also a pita.

I've had very little luck with the polishing kits.

One of the guys who worked for my wife was polishing lenses as a side
gig. He did mine and I didn't get a year out of them. The sun here
kills anything made of plastic.
If you don't coat them they don't last. I found automotive clearcoat
worked good - and rubbing Armour All on them monthly makes a big
difference too.

Still don't stand up to gravel roads and wind-blown sand, though, worth
anything.

Thankfully we have a lot less gravel roads today and I have not
noticed much sand-blast effect. It does help to touch them up every
year or so though.

Well, we don't have any fewer and won't in my lifetime nor almost
certainly even in grandchildrens'.

Just making them from glass again would solve essentially all the
problem...even if only the outer lens were.

Glass probably isn't suitable because of all the complex shapes used in
today's cars and the way that they are held in. The old sealed beam
units sucked as far as lighting up the road too. Back then, most of the
rest of the world used separate bulbs and lenses that gave brighter light and
put the beam in a more precise shape and location. But they did that
with glass lenses back then, so it wasn't a glass issue, just the US
being stuck on stupid. Today's headlights are far better than the old
ones. But I've seen reviews where how well headlights light up the road
varies significantly between one car and another, even within the same
manufacturer's product line. I would bet that's due to trading off
styling for performance.

I would put a sealed beam, even the old technology incandescent, not
even the halogens, up against any new style with a cloudy lens. There
is absolutely no reason why the current technology lighting could not
be put in a sealed beam. That eliminates cloudy lenses, bad reflectors
and $300-400 proprietary light assemblies.

The US AFAIK, was the only place that used sealed beams because of govt regulations and they sucked for lighting. As DPB said, you could probably put a glass lens in most of the current cars, just changing that. The alleged bad reflector nonsense was why we had poor lights, that didn't light up the road well, didn't focus the light, while the rest of the world had modern, well focused ones. In Germany they were driving 150 mph on the Autobahn. Here you could not see to safely drive half that speed. Why you want to go backwards, idk.



That tiny hit you take in
aerodynamics doesn't come near covering the extra cost over the life
of the car.

It's not aerodynamics, it's far superior lighting.


Bull****, all around. A new style foggy light is clearly inferior to
the oldest technology sealed beam that you can just wipe off with a
McDonalds napkin and make like new. They fill the sealed beam with a
noble gas that keeps the reflector from corroding. You also assume
there is no way you can put a modern bulb in a sealed beam. A LED
seems like a natural

As for the current design, it is more about looking cool than actually
being better
Actually, No.
There has never been a sealed beam headlight with the controlled light
pattern and the lumen output of today's headlamp designs - and if
they DID make a "sealed beam" version of today's lights they most
certainly would not be sold for $30 (or less). ANd they WOULD be made
of the same plastic current headlights are made from. The latest
sealed beams didn't even have a "noble gas" fill. The halogen envelope
did - but the rest was just nitrogen or dry air.