It is a very common occurrence. We see then every day. It’s like a disease: yellow, cloudy headlight lenses that need drastic repair. I even saw them on cars at the local car wash. It baffled me that these people were so careful – washing, vacuuming the interior, removing floor mats, and even hand-drying their cars – but they still had those yellowed, cloudy headlights. It’s not just a problem on old, heavily used cars. It is also common in cars 2 to 3 years old. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Dodge, a Ford, a Mercedes or a Porsche.
When asked, most said they couldn’t afford or didn’t want to pay the high prices for replacements from their local car dealer. The average price for a pair of replacement plastic headlights at local car dealers was around $450, which 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 lag, and I still had to install and align them. And why can you do it again in a year or two?
There is another solution, there are headlight repair, cleaning and restoration kits available for under $30 (Google headlight cleaner and/or headlight restorer), much less expensive than aftermarket lenses, and they work!
Plastic headlight lenses are the norm in the auto industry now – all cars have them. Some have fancy names like plexan and lexan, but they all have the same problems. Sun, acid rain, harsh weather conditions, chemicals (brake fluid, power steering fluid, hot radiator fluids, hot water, harsh cleaners, etc.) will cause plastic lenses to quickly degrade and weaken . Some manufacturers have gone on to include a protective film on the lenses. However, everyone is susceptible to this weakening and yellowing over time.
With these headlight repair, cleaning and restoration kits, even junk car lenses have been repaired and restored to like new (as evidenced on some websites). These same glasses used to be thrown away and have now become new profit centers for scrap yards. Treatments are similarly applied to the outside of the headlight lens where the damage is worse and a mechanic is not needed to repair it.
These kits can easily be found under Google Headlight Cleaner and Headlight Restorer. So now you know that there is a very inexpensive solution to the problem of yellow, cloudy and worn headlights: repair them, clean them and make them look like new again. There is no longer an excuse for not having sparkling clean headlights. Car dealers have been using these headlight repairers, cleaners, and restorers on their cars and so can you.
