laxg0alie

I am an owner of a 1999 ES 300, sage colored. I was considering getting the Sylvania Silver Star headlights for it because they will provide better night vision but also look cool. I was wondering whether these seemingly cheap (50 a pair) bulbs are worth it, and if I can simply install them myself.

Also, I recently had a low mph (2mph to be exact) run in with a parking gargage pole in a bright blue color. It left several scratches on my car in that shade of blue, some of which is paint on top of my bumper and some is paint in the scratches. I was wondering whether anyone had any tips as to how I could at the very least clean up this ugly spot on my seemingly perfect lexus.

lexusk8

Welcome to CL lax. Congrats on thinking of upgrading the low beam bulbs of your headlights. The Sylvania Silverstars are one of the popular choices for upgrades; I used to have Silverstars in my '96 ES, and they lasted over a year and made driving at night so much better.

The bulbs are pretty easy to install. You want to get the H7 bulb type. To remove the old bulbs, open the hood, locate the electrical connector of the bulb and disconnect, untwist the black rubber grommet that covers the access area behind the headlamp, peer inside the headlamp, locate the metal spring clip that wraps around the base of the bulb, unhinge the clip to release the pressure, and carefully pull out the entire bulb. You will see there is a black plastic adapter piece attached to the base of the bulb. Remove the adapter piece and transfer that to the new bulb, as this will help with your bulb install. To install the new bulbs, just do the instructions stated above in reverse order. Your new bulb package might also come with written instructions for installation, so keep that in handy. Important: NEVER touch the glass part of the bulb with your hands. Use rubber gloves when handling the new bulbs.

You can safely remove the blue paint from the affected area(s) on your car by applying a 50/50 mix of isoprophyl alcohol and distilled water with a clean cotton towel. Beware that alcohol will strip the wax from your car, so you will have to re-wax the area afterwards. If the scratches are fine and not rough, you can apply a scratch removal applicant like Meguiar's Scratch-X. I have this stuff, and it works great in hiding some of the hairline scratches around my car. However, if your scratches are rough and almost deep, you can either choose to touch-up the area yourself or go to a body shop for repair work.

Hope I provided enough of the info for ya

laxg0alie

Thanks a lot lexusk8, now all I have to do is convince my dad to let me go ahead with the blub swap. As for the paint advice, I'm going to try that tomorrow, hopefully with optimistic results. And and appreciate your welcome to CL, hopefully I'll post a lot more here with the little knowledge I have.

-lax