Opti-lens yellowing after 90 days

Rsurfer said:
So, in your opinion, is Opti Lens the real thing?
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Truthfully I cannot answer that because I do not know the product beyond what I have read. The proof is in what you guys are finding in the real world and I am just chiming in to see if we can find whether some reason exists that it hasn't lasted this time.
 
PiPUK said:
Truthfully I cannot answer that because I do not know the product beyond what I have read. The proof is in what you guys are finding in the real world and I am just chiming in to see if we can find whether some reason exists that it hasn't lasted this time.
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Good enough, thanks.
 
I used Opti-Lens on a headlight resto about two months ago. Gonna have to schedule something with the owner sometime soon to see how it's holding up. I do remember applying it pretty thick. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't have any issues for at least a year!

I live in Albuquerque, NM and we have a few things that work against us...

- TONS of Sun!
- Hot weather!
- Elevation = 5,000ft in the valley and 6,700+ft where I am in the heights.

Every other car you look at needs a headlight resto unless they just bought it.

I'd call it pretty extreme conditions to test out durability of this product.


-Beach
 
PiPUK said:
I have also taken issue with such claims. The things is, proving these claims should actually be quite easy. All it takes is a UV light source and a photodiode - it would take me 5 mins to plot a graph of wavelength versus photon signal for a coated and un-coated substrate. I can immediately give you a real world figure for how much UV light the coating blocks. Fair enough, it probably costs £1k to get the bits and do it right but these companies are claiming to be big global concerns so, by not doing it, they are either just penny pinching or telling us pork pies about how successful they are!

With regards to the topic, whilst Eraser does contains a dose of the most common surfactant in shampoos, I cannot see how this would lead any subsequent coating to turn yellow. My only thought is that it could inhibit bonding so are you sure that the coating is actually still on the lights and that they haven't turned yellow again because the coating never actually bonded properly?
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That's kind of what I was getting at when I was talking about the eraser leaving something behind, a bonding issue. The answer is no...I'm not 100% sure the product is still on there. I tried to make it very clear that I wasn't jumping to the conclusion that it is a bad product...just trying to gather information. I am going to try again using an IPA wipe down.
 
I've seen too many people on here slam a product without totally eliminating all possible causes for failure. I have a lot of confidence in Optimum products and I didn't follow instructions to the letter, I used eraser instead of IPA, so I'll change my process and try and keep y'all posted.
 
Kinda off topic, but I was similarly dissapointed in the infamous "spar" method of keeping the headlights clear.

I did several sets, some with wetsanding than coating, some sets I did with just wetsanding and polishing to a high gloss than coating. In all cases the headlights turned yellow in a matter of months just like they would without being coated. So from my experience, the spar method is crap. Just throwing it out there since I can understand your frustration.
 
It seems like you did things like others here and they had good results. I'm thinking more along the lines of......the MF that you used could have had something on it that opti-lens didn't like. I'm just trying to think outside the box. Maybe you thought the MF was clean but you had some sort of product left on it that caused Opti-lens to fail...my .01 or .02 cents.
 
OP hopefully someone from Optimum chimes in here that would be great to hear anything from them. I had plans to use Opti-Lens on my exterior CF because of the UV protection. I would be really disappointed if it only lasted a few months.


killrwheels@autogeek said:
perhaps they could bring down the cost of the clearcoat they used on the ZR1 carbon fiber parts, if all manufacturers used in on headlamps !
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What clearcoat would this be? I would like to spray some CF products I have. :dblthumb2:
 
Joelotto said:
It seems like you did things like others here and they had good results. I'm thinking more along the lines of......the MF that you used could have had something on it that opti-lens didn't like. I'm just trying to think outside the box. Maybe you thought the MF was clean but you had some sort of product left on it that caused Opti-lens to fail...my .01 or .02 cents.
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Anything is possible, although after trying several microfiber specific detergents/cleaners I use Cheimical Guys Microfiber wash and microfiber detergent. I have found this to remove product from the microfiber better than any of the others I have tried. I always do an extra rinse, but like I said anything is possible. I will be trying again in about a couple weeks. Obviously it will be a little while before I can give results, and it will be a different time of year, but I will post the results.

 
killrwheels@autogeek said:
perhaps they could bring down the cost of the clearcoat they used on the ZR1 carbon fiber parts, if all manufacturers used in on headlamps !
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I looked up what car headlights are covered with, and it appears they use a hard silicone coating.

The problem with paint clearcoat is that it can peel from the edges.

I was looking into other materials to cover headlights besides clear film, and I found Doctor Headlight uses a "patented" clear epoxy. It sounds like a more permanent solution.

Since I'm a cheapass, I tried to find clear epoxy that I could apply myself, but all seem to have yellowing issues over time.

I've been waxing and putting sealant on my headlights for the past 6 years, and the coating still failed. So I am not messing with that anymore.
 
pman626 said:
I looked up what car headlights are covered with, and it appears they use a hard silicone coating.

The problem with paint clearcoat is that it can peel from the edges.
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Eh? I think you'll find that the factory coating, and the "real" repair coatings are UV-cured urethanes. As you noted, epoxies tend to yellow. The clearcoat is on your car is a catalyzed urethane, rather than UV-cure, and I'm not familiar with the failure mode you mention of "peeling from the edges". There's another headlight thread on here that's about a thousand pages long, if you read through the whole thing you'll find out more about headlight coating than you ever wanted to know.
 
I don't have anything of real substance to add, but I've wondered myself if Eraser leaves something behind. Granted, I have never used IPA, but from what I've heard from others, Eraser seems way to smooth to me to not leave something behind. I've questioned the duration of Opti Seal and OCW after using it as well. Even after Eraser has been wiped off and dried, the surface feels somewhat slick. Granted, the paint has usually been at least clayed if I'm using Eraser.

Just throwing that out there.

If you Opti Sealed lights once a month, do you guys think they would yellow ever? Or need anything else? What about once a week?
 
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