A dozen years ago when I bought the Shoe, the original owner had installed a very expensive and worthwhile clear bra on the nose of the car. There was film on all the painted bits that were likely to get stone chipped, and there was film on the plastic headlight assemblies. I left that film in place because it was doing a nice job of protecting the front of the car.
What I didn’t know until it was too late was that the adhesive/film system has a lifespan of about 5 years. If you’re doing it right, you peel the film up before it’s too late and you apply fresh. If you let it go too long, the car still looks ok for several years and everything is still protected but eventually the film will start to yellow. LONG before it yellows, the top layer of the film will become brittle and will break into tiny 1mm square pieces if you try to remove it.
I had the car wrapped a few years back and the guy that did the wrap removed the film from the paint, but not from the lights. At the time, it hadn’t started yellowing too much. However, over time the lights started looking really crappy so I decided to remove the film.
It took about 3 hours per side, but they look pretty good now. The film protected them from the heavy hazing that old plastic lights normally develop. I’ve priced out OEM replacements and they’re RIDICULOUSLY expensive, so I think these will get new protection film and then I’ll be diligent about replacement every several years.