I had a rock break my passenger headlight the other day. Put a toothpick sized hole in the housing along with breaking more glass inside the housing. Now condensation is building and I'm expecting the bulb to blow any day now. I thought this is a good time to convert to a 97-99 style housing. I was searching the threads to get average pricing and someone said that the beam pattern is a lot better with brighter bulbs in the glass housing than in the plastic (97-99 style). I know the stock bulbs are pretty weak, but if I upgrade to HIDs, is the beam pattern going to be better with the plastic or glass housing and why? Thanks...

[edit]
Damn, this was supposed to go into the 4th Gen forum... if it's a problem here please move it... This might be a question better answered here though...
[/edit]

 

Can't have HID's with the 95-96 housing so if your planning on getting the HID's do a 97+ conversion.

 

golden glory had HIDS with 95 housings

 

Why not?

 

yeah thats what i'm saying.......i think he meant that HIDS look better with the 97+ housings?

 

from what i've heard the '97 style glass headlights are actually worse for HID's because the beam pattern is impossible to set correctly. i heard this about Hanabi HID's, btw.

then again i read this on the .org, so it must be true

 

95's have glass.. 97's have plastic

 

I think the beam pattern will be better with the 1995-1996 glass housings for the reason dko said.
-Cyrus

 

I had water in a headlight with an old 86 corolla. I drilled a hole from the bottom of the headlight housing, and water left and no more problems. This may be worth a temporary fix. I don't know how much heat can come out of those holes, so I would check around wherever you may drill to make sure that nothing is close by that could get heat damaged.

 

Thanks for the advise, but it really kinda bugs me so I'm just going to replace it. I called my ins company a long time ago and changed my comprehensive deductable to $0 so if my car got broken into or vandalized it wouldn't cost me a penny to repair (it's already saved me $890). They also said it covered glass repair. I'm wondering if under the glass repair policy if it covers headlight housings. If a rock hits and breaks your wishield, it'll be covered, why not if a rock hits your headlight/foglight it's covered under the same thing. Has anyone had any experience with this specifically? Thanks...

 

I really do not know if they would fix it because of the fact that your "glass" on the headlamp is the actual part that "spreads" the beam across the road. That is why whenever you look at your headlight, you see all of those funny lines and boxes. If you took apart your headlight, the inner part is all smooth, unlike a 97+ headlamp. If they did repair the rock hit, they would have to make sure to almost duplicate the exactness of each "box" and "line" because if they don't, the light will pass through it and will refract into the eyes of the other drivers. And to add to this, if they were to repair it, the actual labor would be more than the cost of a new headlight. Talk to them and see what they say.

 

I just got off the phone with State Farm. They said if it's determined that the damage is cause by a rock, it IS covered under comprehensive (which means $0 for me to have it replaced). I have to take it by a service-plus shop (the shop I use is a service-plus shop) for them to determine whether I ran into something or it's really a rock chip. My foglight has been acting up and has recently quit working and when I looked at it, it looked like it has rock damage as well. Hopefully I'll get them both fixed...