Headlight replacement confusion
 

The lenses of my headlight's are seriously hazed and cracked (beyond repairable) so I'm looking for replacements. I'd rather not go for just the lens replacement even thought I have understood it's possible even for facelift lights. Therefore I'm looking for used lights in good condition. Now I'm a bit confused about the different light variants and which one I should pick.

-The car is 09/23 (very early facelift)
-EU spec
-Facelift headlights
-Factory Xenons S522
-White direction indicator lights S785 (this most likely doesn't matter?)

There are more than enough options when looking online but it's sometimes difficult to compare the pictures and descriptions are sometimes pretty much non-existing. Is there a way to recognize halogen lights from xenons by comparing the housing? A ballast is an obvious one but sometimes they are not included. Not sure about the differences in US and EU cars, but are there any different variants for facelift xenon headlights or is it even possible to go wrong if I buy any facelift lights with xenons?

I attached pictures of two lights with annotations, am I correct with the assumptions of which one is halogen and which is xenon?

Also see the pictures with a red circle, in the left one there is a connector protruding from inside of the housing and in the right picture it looks like it's plugged and there is no opening in the housing at all. Anyone know what that connector is for?

I'd prefer not to take the current lights off the car before having the new ones because of the bumper removal so it's difficult to fully compare the lights.

I was also looking for new aftermarket options which I could get for around 500 euros but from my understanding they are most likely trash compared to the used OEM option?

Sorry I can't speak to the quality of aftermarket, or interchangeability. The headlight you have marked as halogen is correct; it is a halogen unit. Good luck!

Facelift headlight lens aren't replaceable, so you will have to get full units. Or they can be polished out. I did it to mine. If you do a good, thorough job, bring them to a high shine and then spray them with 2K they'll be like new or close to it. A lot cheaper than replacing the headlights. The hazing is on the surface it doesn't go all the way through.

Thanks for the confirmation! It's sometimes confusing when some of the salvage parts are sold as halogen even thought they actually are xenons.

I believe even the facelift ones can be replaced but they would have to be cut off since just heating them isn't enough like in pre-facelift. At least that's how it was done in a video I watched. I'm still tempted to try this since it would be a lot cheaper than replacing the whole headlight.

When it comes to polishing, I did that couple of years ago and that really made them much better for a while but the starting point wasn't as bad as it is now. See the picture for the current situation. In addition to typical cloudiness, there seems to literal cracks in lenses. I'm not really sure how that happened.

Good point about protecting the lenses with 2K clear coat though, I remember trying that for my previous car but somehow the end result was opposite of "clear", it was just extremely cloudy so I had to remove the coating. But that was most likely an user error, I have to look more into this with the new lights/lenses. Any tips or what I might have done wrong the last time?

Looks like those lenses are crazed. You're right, there will be no bringing those back. Yes, the lenses can be replaced by cutting them off. That's a delicate and tedious task in my opinion. It requires more patience than I typically have. Another possibility would be to get some from a salvage yard that are cloudy but not crazed like yours and polish them out then 2k them. A wild guess on your 2K problem would be either a temperature problem or contamination issue on the lens surface.

Mine have the same cracks. I hired a Craigslist headlight restoration guy. He's retired. He started on my current set of headlights. He stopped after two minutes. He said the lens have a clear coat on them. It would take hours to remove the clear. I paid him for his travel distance and time. I'll be replacing the current set with unrestored units. I'll polish the replacement set before installation.

Or do OEM lens crack like the pic?

Even though the pre-LCI lenses are in theory replaceable, getting the old ones off is very difficult and I ended up destroying the right-side housing. I did get the left one off and replaced with a new ebay China part which looked great, until water started getting inside. I tried resealing it twice and gave up and bought complete xenon replacements off ebay that looked decent enough. I used a Cerakote kit on them and that looked great for about a year, but not so much now.

As long as I can still see the road, I'm not gonna worry about it.

Okay what I actually ended up doing was order new lenses from China, the price difference between compared to used headlights was quite big, now we'll see how I'll be able to cut the old ones off without breaking the headlight housings. But in the end, if this won't work, I'll have to buy new headlights anyway. If it was for me, I wouldn't be replacing the lights just yet since I feel like I'm able to see the road just fine for now, but the car won't be passing the yearly inspection as it is now. Of course there could be some dazzling of other road users due to wear of the lenses.

That was a good choice.Dont forget to get a roll of butyl adhesive to glue the new lenses.
People keep saying ,the facelift lenses,need to be cut ,but if you are patient ,using a heat gun ,a scapel and prying with a screw driver ,you can lift the old lenses out,by starting from a corner.I know the adhesive is rubber and not butyl as on pre facelift,but its dooable .I have done it on a few recent cars with a lot of patience and then the most time consuming work is actually cleaning off the rubber sealant to make way for the yje butyl reseal,just take your time.Good luck👍