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good aftermarket headlight housings

L

Lifespeed

New member
At the risk of posting an oxymoron, are there any good aftermarket headlight housings for my 2001 Grand Prix GTP? The stockers are like candles in a bucket with the yellowed plastic. Will probably combine these with Philips extreme vision halogens. Not really looking to do HID or LED.

edit: I see Rockauto lists the following
TYC NSF certified $34
TYC CAPA certified $73
Dorman $48

Are there any differences in quality, sealing of moisture, etc? I am willing to pay more if the product is actually better. From my experience, aftermarket plastic headlights are not always well made.

Thanks,

Lifespeed
 


The ones that suck are Ebay Spyder projectors for 04+, all the rest are about the same quality.

Have you looked at restoring the originals, or are they too far gone?
 
I'd probably bought somewhere around 6 or 8 headlights from Rockauto and they were the TYC brand. It was always around 70-80 for the pair.

Never had any real problems with them, maybe one or two got condensation build up on the inside but that was an easy fix with a second breather hole in the bottom of the housing. The brackets are actually pretty nice if you ask me too, no real headlight bounce with the cars I've installed them on. Used several sets for making projector retro-fits too.
 
As already noted, TYC from RockAuto.....

Headlight_Housings_002.JPG




The only thing better is retro-fits. Do we need to go there? LOL
 
Any idea why the price difference between TYC CAPA and TYC NSF? It seems odd the same vendor would make two different versions for the same car. Three if you count Dorman, but they're a different mfg.
 


I used some TYC. They are garbage. The clear coating on them starting coming off after about 18 months. That was with maybe 10k miles put on during that time. Aggravating as hell.
 
Got about 6 months on some TYC NSF and still look good. I'll be happy if they are good for a couple years. Heck the OEM ones yellow in about 5 years.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Don't buy the Eagle Eye brand, they fog up and the brackets are made out of butter soft plastic and the headlights bounce all over the place.
 
I had my first set of TYC lights for like 3-4 years, even removed them and had them in a box for a while my retro-fits were installed. Re-installed them for a few months and sold my car with them.

Put a set on my sisters car a 2+ years ago and they still look good.
 
80 dollars.is cheap for a couple years.
Try to keep some variety of sealant on them to help protect them from uv.
Every week if you have to. I have some 2 1/2 years old and they are like new.
Then again I coated mine with opti- lens when they were new and some form of drying aid when I wash(which now is opti-seal)
 


LeadfootCJ7 said:
I used some TYC. They are garbage. The clear coating on them starting coming off after about 18 months. That was with maybe 10k miles put on during that time. Aggravating as hell.
Click to expand...

Slick2500 said:
Don't buy the Eagle Eye brand, they fog up and the brackets are made out of butter soft plastic and the headlights bounce all over the place.
Click to expand...

Fivefingerdeathpunch said:
I had my first set of TYC lights for like 3-4 years, even removed them and had them in a box for a while my retro-fits were installed. Re-installed them for a few months and sold my car with them.

Put a set on my sisters car a 2+ years ago and they still look good.
Click to expand...

buickman104 said:
My TYC brackets are garbage. They bounce all over the place and vibrate the light beam while just idling.
Click to expand...

And this is the reason for my post. Not surprising that a $34 plastic headlight is garbage. Too bad the mfg's don't consider we might pay more for non-garbage. I guess my other options are Dorman or TYC CAPA. I have no idea what TYC CAPA is, nor have any reason to believe it is a better product other than it is more expensive. And wouldn't that be funny if that were the only difference, same headlight but double the price with no other differences?

Edit: CAPA is an auto parts quality testing organization. I called Rockauto and the claim is parts that pass CAPA are often manufactured differently. I guess I'll give them a try . . .
 
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It was a bit of a mixed bag, and took me longer than 10 minutes because I hadn't done it before. One out of two plastic tits on the edge of one corner lamp broke with very little force applied. Still stays in place, and other than that they seem decent. They are mounted securely and don't vibrate at an idle. The headlights are Sylvania (included), but the marker lamps had to be re-used.

They're a lot brighter of course, and the aim doesn't appear to be off by a mile, although I'll have to do a proper aiming soon. Thanks to all for the advice.
 
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