wierd taillight dip

**jrea42** · 01-26-2009, 06:13 PM

my 02 ss on the tailight lenses (plastic outer shell) there is like and indetntion right where the brake bulb is, is this normal?

**5150** · 01-26-2009, 06:18 PM

Could be. Mine has it too on the drivers side.

**Phantom2kz** · 01-26-2009, 06:26 PM

had that on my 97. think it was from having the tail light covers , and too much heat from bulbs.
i know what your thinkin...

did your car have tail light covers at one time?

**jrea42** · 01-26-2009, 06:54 PM

well my uncle had the car new and he said he didnt have covers on it

**BADASS2000SS** · 01-28-2009, 08:41 AM

My OEM taillights had the same thing. I dont think they are supposed to be there. My car never had covers on it!

**NoscamaroSS** · 01-28-2009, 09:12 AM

Both my LS1 camaros did it, one did it from sitting in traffic for 17hrs.

**mr_r0bert0** · 02-02-2009, 10:32 PM

both of my taillights have it and look like it was on purpose. weird. i always thought they were like that just stock tho

**totalkos** · 02-03-2009, 08:34 PM

mine are pretty bad. but i thought it was supposed to be like that! they look very uniform, i guess because it took so long to do.

but i got the car like that.

**98Z28Camaro** · 02-04-2009, 11:27 AM

Yeah both of my tailights are like that, they look the same on both tailights. I figured mine were from the covers.

**bluefields88** · 02-05-2009, 10:27 PM

That happened to me. When I met Scott Settlemier he check out my car and signed it. He told me that the lens had melted from the heat of the bulbs, said it happened alot on the pace cars. I just went on ebay and bought some new ones. Took about 20 minutes to swap them out.

**BigFrog** · 08-25-2014, 06:00 PM

Has anyone tried warming the lens with a heat gun and pushing the dent back out (gently of course)? I switched to LED's to stop if from getting worse, but I don;t want to lay out the cash for new lenses.

**Firebirdjones** · 08-26-2014, 05:03 AM

Originally Posted by BigFrog

Has anyone tried warming the lens with a heat gun and pushing the dent back out (gently of course)? I switched to LED's to stop if from getting worse, but I don;t want to lay out the cash for new lenses.

I'd say not worth the time considering new lenses are cheap, plus the fact that after 15 years of use (scratches/fading) new lenses would just compliment the car and look better. Trying to heat and form the plastic where it's already stretched out of shape usually doesn't work out well anyway, difficult if not impossible to shrink it and likely would never look exactly right

Not to mention it would probably discolor the red or at the very least fade it.

Your LED idea however will do the trick, less heat produced with those. However I've never had a lens heating issue with stock bulbs on any of our 4th gens so I first saw this thread as a bit strange.

**BigFrog** · 08-27-2014, 02:29 PM

Ya, having LED's for a few years stopped the warping, but then one burned out and I didn't have the cash for a new LED. Now that I live where it's 105 degrees all summer, the lens warp got worse. My lenses are actually in fine shape otherwise, I may try to warm it slowly inside and out, see if I can push the bubble out a bid so it's not as noticeable for a few months until I can get new lenses and LED's. I have a nice adjustable heat gun, so I can do a slow and even warming on it. I have nothing to lose

**Firebirdjones** · 08-27-2014, 02:43 PM

Yeah it's nothing but your own time, give it a shot and see what happens.

It got worse for you in the heat? I live in AZ where summer temps are also over 100, and frequent the valley where it's 115 plus during the hottest time of the year. Not sure why I don't experience this issue. Was there a bad batch run of tail light lenses maybe?