Hi fellow jaguar lovers. My eyes are not what they use to be and the lenses on my headlights are very cloudy. I would like to replace the lenses and headlights with new high intensity lights so I can see to drive at night. Does anyone know where I can get these lights to fit my 2004 XJ8?

​​​​​Thank you in advance for your help. Diane

 

Diane,

I've moved your question from General Tech Help to X350 forum. Members here with the same model will be able to help.

Graham

 

get them restored

any detailer will do it for about 100 bucks

 

Walmart offers this service for around $50. We had our Audi done this past year and the headlights still look clear. Well worth the money to get some visibility back.

 

Do NOT waste your money on replacement head lights. Like all of these plastic lenses they eventually get a fog on t he outer glass, which can be polished out. I had exactly the same on my first X350. YOu can actually now buy polishing kits for them and other cars using polycarbonate plastic for the outer lens

 

Hi DianeQ,

I wanted to provide a direct answer to your question. Here is a thread where XJ8JR explained their approach to upgrading from reflector style halogen to ellipsoid HID. It is not recommended to directly add HID bulbs to a reflector style headlight assembly as the beam pattern is not properly focused and can blind oncoming drivers and it isn't as effective. Although it is tedious, I think this is the best way to make the conversion. It would be difficult to retrofit the factory XJ8 HID system due to the self-leveling headlight system, which is not easily integrated as far as I know. I did an HID conversion on my wifes Lexus GX470, which already had ellipsoid housings, and polished the lenses and it turned out fantastic. In fact, the lighting on that vehicle is better than the factory HIDs on my XJ8. I still need to polish the lenses on the Jag, and maybe that'll help. I think the factory temperature on my 2004 XJ8 was between 4100 or 4300 Kelvin, but I went with 5000 K when I replaced them, and it was much better, but to be fair older bulbs aren't as bright. I went with 5500 K in the Lexus.

As others have mentioned, polishing the lenses would be a good idea no matter which direction you choose. With the Lexus I wet sanded with 800, 1000, 1500, 2000, and then 3000 grit. From here you can move on to polish and wax, but I wanted to preserve the clarity of the lenses for as long as possible so I added 4 coats of 2K clear coat to prevent UV damage. I decided to wet sand the clear coat with the same sequence of sandpapers to remove the orange peel. Then I polished and waxed the lenses. I wax them when I wax the vehicle and they haven't noticeably deteriorated in the California sun after about a year and a half. There are numerous tutorials for this on the web.

There is no easy way to convert your car over to HIDs and this was a huge deciding factor in my Jaguar purchase. I had to decide between a fully functioning XJ8 without HIDs versus one with HIDs that was not drivable and in need of some repairs. Both cars were otherwise identical. Despite not being able to test drive the car, I went with the one with HIDs because of the difficulty of the conversion. That being said, if I had gone with the other car, I would have most definitely upgraded the lights using XJ8JR's method.

A third option could be sourcing the factory HID headlight housings and adding aftermarket ballasts and bulbs. I don't have any idea about how to override the self leveling system so that the lights are properly aimed, but someone surely has attempted this approach.

I hope this helps and best of luck to you!

 

only the early HIDs have self leveling and can be aimed manually anyways

 

That is great to know! In that case I would have gone with option three.

 

That is easy to fix. Wet sand the headlights with 600, then 800, then 1200 grit sandpaper.
wash off well with water and dry, then hit the headlights with a waxing pad and rubbing compound.
Lastly, do a final coat of either wax or ceramic coat.
This will make them like new, and when you wash the car you can easily buff the headlights again and wax/coat to keep them that way.
And its extremely cheap to do, just need a little elbow grease

 

Clearing up the cloudy lenses will make all the difference in the world. To the wet-sanding described above, I would add a 3000-grit polishing step, then the cleaning and clear-coat. (Without the clearcoat you'll be doing it all again within a few months.)

I haven't had to do it on my Jag, but here's what my '99 Miata looked like when I bought it, and when I was done.

 

Thank you, thank you everyone for the great information. I will give them a try. Stay safe.

 

If sanding with finer and finer grits does it, then Brasso for the final cut/polish! (it's a years-old trick)

 

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that's a proper way of doing it. will last a bit longer.
however, if you use just a simple car polish for metalic paints... apply, allow to dry for 5 min and rub-in in circular motion . Does the job as well, and should last for 1-2month. I have done on most of my cars for years

 

There's also toothpaste, according to the reliable source Google. "toothpaste headlights"