I thought it was to make the cars visually distinctive? I like it for that reason

 

The green tint is the cause of the chrome being heated up by the hid bulbs, that is my theory at least I have no way to back this up though.

I have new oem lenses, chrome stripped surrounds ready for paint, as well as another set of usdm headlights if anyone is interested.

If you are going to take the lenses off put them in the oven at 160°F for 10 mins take them out start prying repeat till lens is off.

 

I definitely will. I found another thread on here that mentioned you could buy the lenses online from Aliexpress. I don’t know how good the quality is yet.

I have a friend that painted my headlight housings on both my SC and LS. We did the oven method for the SC and a heat gun for the LS. He didn’t have too much trouble removing the bumper to get the headlights out so I may ask him to do it next time. If I didn’t need to remove the bumper, I would attempt this myself. It’s a little risky because you don’t want to damage the housings, like you mentioned. I saw that on the SC forum once where someone had accidentally had the oven on broil instead of bake.

 

That’s what people speculate about the second generation Lexus GS’ headlights since most had green headlights.

How did you get those new OEM lenses? I’d love to go OEM for my lense replacement but I figured it would be pricey to get. A second set of headlights would be nice to have too.