Anyone ever washed their headlights from the inside? I did that a few weeks ago, and it worked better than I expected!

The left-hand-side headlight was quite dirty from the inside, there were cracks in the plastic body that had let road grime onto the reflector and the inside of the glass. It wasn't much use when driving at night, plus it looked all matt without lights on at daylight. As you can't take apart the glass from the older-type headlights without the danger of damaging the unit, there's no direct access to the reflector or the inside of the glass.

What I did may sound radical, but I simply removed the headlight from the car (four 10mm nuts), poured some dishwashing detergent in, added some water, and shook the unit for a while. Then poured away the detergent/water and rinsed the unit thoroughly by keeping it under a running tap, letting pure water circulate, to remove all remaining dirt and detergent. Finally, I dried the remaining water drops with a hair-dryer.

Result? Roughly a 200% improvement in the lighting performance, and now the left-hand-side headlight looks almost as good as the right-hand-side one, apart from some minor pitting/peeling around the corners of the reflector (the salty dust had sat there quite a while).

Now, I wouldn't recommend this but as a last choice. However, in my case it did the trick and I saved about FIM 700,- (~US$100+).

Don't know if anyone's interested, but here's a couple of pics of the 9 I owned before my current champagne-gold 9 TC: The 1982 R9 GTL.

You can see three different states; Evo1, Evo2 and Evo3!
First there were 13" Amil alloys with 175/70x13 Goodyear GT's. Original-height suspension.
Then came the 14" VW steel wheels with 185/60x14 Savas (they were cheap...) Still with that "off-road" suspension! 8-}
Finally I took the angle-grinder and dropped the front "enough" and adjusted the rear torsion bars to match!

All this happened sometime '95 to '96...









Sadly, the 'IAM-196' no longer is with us...

Hi Juha- we have Sealed Beam type Headlights to the USA made R-9, but the NEWER Fancy type with replaceable Bulbs are becoming quite popular now-- you know those funny looking Bluish looking lights from a distance -- then as you get closer to the car-- the lights get whiter and brighter.... BUT what KIND are the BEST Type???? Zenon??? You can find them for differnt prices on Ebay.com Auction site-- and different prices too,, but if I get YOUR type of Bulbs for Newer headlights-- tell me which are the best..
Thanks Joe in USA

Hi All, Juha-- I forgot you TOLD me already about those New Headlights-- Perhaps I am getting as OLD as MY CARS!!! They say the Mind (Brain) is the first part to GO.... Everything Else works on my body (thank God but my Brain is faulty-- Hey-- If I can fix my Renualt- then why Can't my brain be fixed ??-- have I been breathing too many Exaust Fumes ????.... which reminds me... my 2 GTA 2.0 F3R motors passed the Local emmissions test- not bad for cars made in 1986....
and if my other 2 GTA cars do not pass-- I just got my Motor repair publication Book MOT.F.. (G)
In english for USA and Canada , Book 8980 010 389
Nice book too.....
Joe in USA

Hi Joe,

Assuming you don't mean real (expensive) Gas Discharge headlights fitted to some new top-of-the-range models, then there are the Xenon look-a-like halogen bulbs designed to fit to an old-type headlight. There are several different manufacturers for these, and several different hues: "Bright White", "Mega Blue", "Super Green", even orange!

There was an extensive test on headlight bulbs in a Finnish car magazine just a couple of issues back. They tested the most common bulb type in Europe, the H4. I don't know if this is used in the US, or if you only use HB3 and HB7 instead?

Anyway, the outcome was clear: only buy bulbs made by well-known manufacturers like Philips. Most of the bulbs offered in all colours of the rainbow ("Mega Blue" etc.) are made in Taiwan or Malesia etc, and are worth nothing.

I haven't checked what Ebay has to offer, but if you want the best "blue" bulb, go for Philips BlueVision. According to the test, it was almost as good as the ordinary "old-white" Philips bulb (which btw is only a quarter the price of BlueVision...)

Those Eurolite and PIAA bulbs come in plastic packages looking suspiciously the same as those Taiwanese bulbs they found no good in the magazine test. Only the name and the colour on the sticker is different. I'd say they all come from one and the same manufacturer!

Some of the H4 bulbs seemed to be 80W, that's way too much. According to regulations, they should be 55W for the dipped beam, 60W for the main. The glass looks very dark blue, which probably necessitates the higher wattage, for the bulb to emit any light at all!


Hope I don't sound too discouraging... I've approached the question from a point of view where you want the best (=most effective) lighting for your money. That's where Philips & Co. rule. But as not to forget just cruising around in town, then these extremely blue Taiwanese products will definitely look cool...

Later in May I am going to a National CarShow in Carlisle Pa. (about 3-4 hrs southwest of New York City) where a lot of British and Italian cars show up for a weekend. Last year there were a couple of parts vendors that had these replaceable Newfangled Blue Headlights in kits-- I really did not see a need to buy them for my GTA, but they were fun to look at if you wanted your car to look "COOL"
There are some Real NICE of those Terribly Expensive WHITE lights Headlights with step up transformers (Higher Voltage) on some of Lincoln, Cadillac, Nercedes, Lexus, but try PAYING for a replaceable headlight and I have heard of them costing up to $800 !!! Imagine that just for a headlight!!!
Well my GTA looks "COOL" already- and I would like to have those New Lights-- but I would like to have other things too-- so I might have to wait for a while...
Perhaps I will see what the vendors have this year, and report the brands and the prices.... also glad you saw what is on ebay... you have to put in "Alliance" or "encore" for Renault parts to pop up,,,,,
I surf Ebay UK but I only find toys on a Renault search--- is there such an auction site in Europe that has many auto parts as on regular Ebay ????
Thanks Joe in USA