About a year ago I got my headlight replaced.
My other headlight by comparison looked dingy. So I went to a detail shop and had the older one restored.
A year later it looks dingy again while the other one still looks brand new.
Did I get scammed? I think I paid like $50 they have that thing restored. It was done by an auto detailed professional.
I’m just trying to manage expectations here. Thanks for any feedback.
All they do is sand them down below they point that the UV rays have yellowed them and the cracks/scratches are buffed out. It’s just going to happen again to the newly exposed plastic.
the expected service life of a headlight restoration is at least one year and may be as long as 3 years
headlight restoration if done right with the reapplication of a UV protective hard coat extends the usable life of the headlight
Extends being the key word. It extends the usable life, it’s not a permanent fix.
Ah, good information. Thanks Joey
How much is a new headlight? If it’s more than, say, $200, it’s probably worth having it restored every few years. If it’s less, it’ll probably be easier to just replace it.
You can get DIY kits, but unless you have something like an air powered die grinder or other fast and lightweight tool, it’ll be easier to let someone else do it for $50. I can tell you, from my own experience, that doing this with a drill that’s powerful enough to do the job, is a lot of work. Holding a heavy (18v cordless milwaukee) drill, that’s getting hotter and hotter for a half hour gets very tiring, and then you still have to do the other side.
Once the UV-resistant coating is buffed off, the plastic will haze again in a few months.
I just use a DIY headlight cleaner compound every time I notice my wife’s car’s headlights getting hazy. It only takes a few minutes, and it way cheaper than a new headlight assembly.
I think I paid over 300.
I plan to keep this car for a good while. I may just go ahead and buy a new one while the other one is still new.
It’s distracting when I drive so I feel like it may be worth the expense.
I’ll try the compound first though like @beowulff suggests.
If you’re up for it, check some junkyards. Granted those headlights will be the same age as yours, you might be able to find some that aren’t as yellow. And if that’s something you’d actually be willing to do, cross reference your lights to other years to see if you can find a more recent pair.
You might also be able to swap out just the front lens for considerably less.
The thing you’re dealing with here is likely a complete headlight assembly. The cost of course depends on the car. I had to get one of mine replaced, but it wasn’t because of the plastic getting fogged, it was because an incompetent mechanic had stripped the aiming adjustment screw while fixing a different problem. It was many years ago, and I think the assembly was well over $300. I had it replaced by my faithful competent mechanic that I should have gone to in the first place, but I was in a hurry and the headlight was barely working at all. I will refrain from mentioning the name of the place that I’ve consistently found to be incompetent, but its initials are “Canadian Tire”.
I’ve used those, too. They improve the transparency of the plastic cover but it’s never as good as new and doesn’t last as long. To this day there’s still a distinctive difference between the new headlight assembly and the original one, even after cleaning. It’s still worth sanding down with the cleaning compound, though.
I’ve used a kit to restore the opaque headlamp lens, and had the same experience as you. After a year, it had become opaque again. The next time I did it, I applied a spray-on UV coating which seems to have been somewhat effective.
Maybe that’s something you could look into?
But, at least on some cars, you can get an aftermarket lens replacement. I have no idea if they’re worthwhile, I was really only made aware of them because they were mentioned in one of the articles I posted upthread. But, for example, here’s one for a Honda Accord. It’s about $100 less than the entire assembly.
I used a headlight restoration kit once and it included a bottle of UV coating to apply at the end of the process. I sold the car a couple of years later and the headlights were still looking fine (and the car was parked outdoors 24/7). If the OP is considering a DIY fix, it’s probably worthwhile to make sure the kit includes a UV coating step.
The solution: pop-up headlights.
To answer the OP’s question, no, restored headlights don’t last forever. Adding UV blocker to the restored headlights will, however, prolong the repair.
I’ve used this kit with good results. The sanding was easy, the whole procedure took maybe (maybe) 10 minutes per light, and it came with a UV blocker that was impregnated on a little piece of cloth, kind of like an eyeglass cleaning wipe. Basically you sand down the headlight using progressively finer sand paper (using sanding disks that go on a power drill, so all you have to do is a hold a drill, it doesn’t use any elbow grease at all), and then polish the headlight using a liquid polishing compound. The last step is to wipe the polish off and apply the UV blocker, giving it several coats. The only downside, such as it is, is that you have to wait several hours – a day maybe? – before you can drive the car. The headlight looks as clear as new when you’re done.
I did those headlights a year ago in September and they still look like new. The car is parked outside on the driveway, facing west pretty much 24/7 FWIW. I’ll soon do my son’s pickup using the same kit.
Edit: the masking tape the kit comes with the kit sucks. Get a roll of the wide blue stuff from Ace and make sure you take your time masking around the headlight. One wrong move with the sanding pad will expose bare metal next to the headlight, which will really ruin your day.
Pro-tip: Use more than one layer of masking tape. You can power sand through a single tape layer very quickly if you lose your balance or other gross disturbance of what should be a delicate, refined, and controlled process.
The last time I bought a headlight globe, I had a choice of AUD $7.50, or AUD $55.
One of the claims of the $55 version was that it was UV blocking, to prevent damage to the headlight lens.
I used the Meguiar’s Two Step Headlight Restoration Kit on my 9 year-old headlights. It worked well enough but two years later the headlights look pretty much the way they did before. I think I would have had longer lasting results if I hadn’t waited so long. It’s not a huge deal since I almost never drive at night.