I inherited my 94 ES300 a few years ago. The headlights have been crappy for as long as I can remember. the covers were pretty cloudy when I got the car. I cleaned them up and they are pretty clear now, but I noticed that the inside lenses are also cloudy. (picture attached). Would this be causing my crappy lighting, or is that just how these cars are. I only ask, because my 2014 Rav4 has the same style lenses and they are crystal clear and very bright. Not HID lights.

If they are supposed to be clear, I'm guessing that the only way to improve the lighting in this situation would be to replace it?

 

You can try this if you don't want to replace them, this is from an SC but its pretty much the same process for an ES.
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sc-...finishing.html

 

Thanks. that is a great DIY instructional. I'll have to try that when I don't have to drive the car for a few days.

Is there anything special to removing the headlights on the ES?

 

Here's a video that will show you how to remove the headlights.
http://www.carcarekiosk.com/video/19...n_signal_front

While you have the headlights open you can remove the orange trim piece if you choose to, it gives them a more modern look.

These are some ES300 specific instructions I found online for the process, hope this helps:
1. take headlight out of the car and disconnect all bulbs and remove them(including blinker) and remove the clips found around the edge where the two parts of the headlights meet. they simply pop off and are not much trouble at all.

HEATING PROCESS - CRUCIAL PART
2. The headlight must go in the oven in order to heat up and partially liquify the black silicone type glue that holds the two parts together.
Heatin oven at low setting (i found 200 works pretty well for about 2 or 3 minute heating sessions and start slowly prying apart the two parts of the headlight....this is the longest process and it must be done slowly and one must be careful as to not chip or crack the plastic on either parts of the headlight (putty knife comes in handy here) the trick is to loosen it all around pretty good and then work on one end of the headlight and once you get one end unglued you can free up the rest of the headlight by easily prying....if that makes sense....
3. unscrew the two sections (blinker and lense) and seperate every part to see all of the parts
4. do what you need to do such as remove the amber strip, clean the lenses, paint the housing black or whatever other color ( in my case just left silver), and re-asssemble everything back together to the way in which u took it out. Now when i was removing the amber strip, i accidentally broke little shards of plastic off and therefore it was not exactly "clear" so i used chrome tape to cover where the amber strip once was (looks great and i reccommend it to everyone who is considering clear corners) To clean the lenses i just unscrewed them from their resting place and used windex to clean them....i used 'soft scrub' on the plastic headlight covering.
5. reheat the two sections and push back together when the black silicone type glue that was originally used to seal the headlight is hot and silicone the hell out of it....i used a lot of silicone glue to make sure that there is no condensation ever!!!
6. now just re-install the bulbs and wires and you're good to go.....

 

cool. thanks for that. Looks pretty simple to remove the housings.

 

The optics has changed over 20 years. I notice a lot of newer cars that use the same 9006 type bulb have much brighter headlights.

I doubt that that little cloudyness inside the lens is causing a significant dimming of your headlights.

You might also want to switch to new bulbs as bulbs dim over time.