It is a very common occurence. We see then every day. Its like a disease - yellow, cloudy headlight lenses in drastic need of repair. I even saw them on cars at the local carwash. It befuddled me that these people would take such great care - washing, vacuuming the interior, removing the floor mats and even hand drying their cars, but they still had those yellowed, cloudy headlights. Its not just a problem on old, very used cars. It is prevalent on 2 - 3 year old cars also. It doesn't matter if it is a Dodge, Ford, Mercedes, or a Porsche. When questioned, most said they couldn't afford, or didn't want to pay the high prices of replacements from their local auto dealer. The average price for a pair of replacement plastic headlights at local auto dealerships was around $450 - that didn't even include installation and alignment (that would be another $60-120). Aftermarket headlights do exist, but have received mixed reviews, and the savings aren't that great, quality and fit is lagging, and then you still had to have them installed and aligned. And for what so you can do it again in another year or two? There is another solution, there are headlight repair, cleaner and restorer kits available for under $30 (look up headlight cleaner and/or headlight restorer on Google), much less expensive than replacement lenses, and they work! Plastic headlight lenses are the norm in the automotive industry now - every car has them. Some have fancy names like plexan and Lexan, but they all have the same problems. The sun, acid rain, harsh weather conditions, chemicals (brake fluid, power steering fluid, hot radiator fluids, hot water, harsh cleaners, etc...) will all cause the plastic lenses to degrade and weaken quickly. Some manufacturers have gone to including a protective film on the lenses. Regardless, they are all susceptible to this weakening and yellowing over time. With these headlight repair, cleaner and restorer kits even junk yard car lenses have been repaired and restored to brand new (as evidenced on some websites). These same lenses used to be discarded and now have become new profit centers for salvage yards. The treatments are similarly applied to the exterior of the headlight lens where the damage is worst and it doesn't take a mechanic to repair it. These kits can easily be found under headlight cleaner and headlight restorer on Google. So now you know there is a very economic solution to the problem of yellow, cloudy, worn headlights - repair, clean and restore them to new again. There's no excuse now to not have sparkling clean headlights. Car dealerships have been using these headlight repair, cleaner and restorer on their cars and you can too. |
