Why have my lights changed colour?

The fuel economy of a Toyota Harrier 3.0 improves when on the highway. File photo  

Dear Paul, I drive a Mercedes E class W210. My headlights have become opaque and brown. I can hardly see at night because they are not clear. My washing bay man says he can use paint thinner to clean them. What do you advise? Kahuma.

Dear Kahuma, most car headlights covers on modern cars are made from a thermo plastic material called plexiglass glass. These headlight covers tend to be vulnerable to harsh chemicals in soap detergents, paint thinners and car body polishes.
The top layer of the headlight covers become rough, dark and translucent. Often your visibility at night is impaired due to the restriction of the light beam.

There is a local remedy where one uses paint thinners and light sand paper to scrub off the scales and brighten the headlamp cover.

The down side is it sands off some of the plastic cover’s surface protective material. This leaves it temporarily clean but will soon become even darker.
A more permanent and safer solution is the use of purpose made headlight cleaners available in any leading supermarket. A good example is the Turtle wax headlight cleaner.
This safely cleans the headlights without damaging their surface material.

Hello Paul. What does Ect power mean in a car and when should I use it? And when should I use L and 2 gears in a car? Anonymous

Hello, the ‘ECT PWR’ button changes the shift points and hold points on your transmission during gear shifts. ECT PWR (power) is for more aggressive driving. In the PWR mode, the shift points allow you to stay in lower gears a little longer.

In this mode, the transmission downshifts quicker and holds the gears longer in that rpm band before shifting to the next higher gear.

This enables you to maintain high engine revolutions per minute.

In the PWR shifting mode, your fuel consumption is higher as you keep your engine revolutions high. The ‘manu’ mode is for normal driving and allows you to enjoy fuel economy with slower gear downshifts and faster gear upshifts.

The ‘D2’ and ‘L’ gears on your automatic transmission are used to slow down your car by restricting your automatic transmission to a lower gear.

This feature is designed to help a motorist maintain traction of the car when driving in bad weather or down steep terrain.
Drive ‘2’ when selected will be useful to maintain sufficient engine torque (pulling power) when driving on a wet slippery road or during the towing of another vehicle. ‘L’ should be selected when the car is stuck in a rut or slippery ditch or when you need to slow down the car when driving down a steep incline.

Hi Paul, what is the fuel consumption of a 3.0 Toyota Harrier?

Hi there, the Toyota Harrier 3.0 litre petrol V6 engine delivers a fuel economy result of 8.06 kilometres per litre when driven in urban start stop traffic.

On the highway the fuel economy improves to 10.2 kilometres per litre if you drive an average speed of 100 -120 kph. These fuel economy statistics are not ‘cast in stone’.
They can be varied (improved or worsened) depending on one’s driving style,(overloading, aggressive or gentle), careful use of the overdrive facility, car engine maintenance condition, tyre condition and choice of fuel quality.