Headlight restoration or lens replacement in COS?

[ray1970]

Some of the guys at work did this to their company trucks. It takes a bit of time and effort. The results were okay but didn?t last long. Now when the headlights get that bad they just install new ones. Not sure what type of vehicle you?re dealing with but it might be looking into the price for new ones. I?d almost bet you can swap them out in way less time than cleaning the existing ones up.

[theGinsue]

Some of the guys at work did this to their company trucks. It takes a bit of time and effort. The results were okay but didn't last long. Now when the headlights get that bad they just install new ones. Not sure what type of vehicle you?re dealing with but it might be looking into the price for new ones. I?d almost bet you can swap them out in way less time than cleaning the existing ones up.

My wife's 02 Intrepid needed this done a couple of time. I used 2 different "best" kits for about $35/ea and spent hours doing this each time, only for the results to last too short of time for the cost and effort required.

When they needed restored the 3rd time I went to RockAuto.com and ordered whole new headlight assemblies for $70/ea. (total: $140 -$35 for a restoration kit = $105). The Rock Auto assemblies came with wiring harnesses and new bulbs in the assemblies. The replacement for both assemblies took <1 hour. We just traded in the Intrepid 2 weeks ago - about 5 years after installing the new headlight assemblies and the headlights still looked brand new.

After this experience I'll never waste my time or money on restoration and just go straight to replacement.

Note: Due to Colorado Springs taxation requirements for retailers (even online retailers), RockAuto.com will NO LONGER deliver to a Colorado Springs address. Items purchased on their site need to be sent to a friend/family out of town (a coworker has the items sent to another coworkers home in Black Forest).