Originally Posted by Cissy
Me again. I decided to take a picture of each one. Believe it or not, I made NO scratches. It's the corrossion. I even put in "eyelids" hoping it would stop it. At the time, the lids actually covered the start of the corrossion. No, it can't be cleaned off nor polished off. With my orginal lenses, I tried that. I succeeded in scratching them a bit.
Thanks for your time.
This isn't corrosion as much as it's the disintegration of the hardcoat applied to the lexan/polycarbonate lens cover.
The headlight lens covers wouldn't last a month without the hardcoat due to its low hardness. Just like eyeglasses made of the same material, the manufacturer coats the plastic surface with a chemical coating (like a clearcoat) designed to be much harder than the plastic, yet clear as glass.
The unfortunate thing is that the hardcoat applied to earlier XF's obviously had some sort of QC issue. Later XF's (2006/2007's) have much more reliable coatings.
Wet sanding/polishing is very easy to do. But make sure you do not scratch your paint while you work on your lenses. Mask the car parts off very carefully before doing this.