Cheap & Easy Headlight Restoration

The ability to repair a headlight lens is the result of years of research and development. It's not a difficult technique really, but it does take a little skill and a few tools. Personally the cost of doing it yourself is not much less than paying someone to do it for $30-$45 per headlight. Sometimes you can get both for about $65-$75 unless you have large lenses then they may charge a bit more.

There are some videos on this page showing how it's done. But if it's your first time it can be a little risky so I would recommend finding someone local to do it for you. It's going to be under $100 and your headlights will look either brand new or nearly new. You will be surprised at the results. I've had lenses done on two Crossfires and they always came out looking brand new. On the first Crossfire I had one of the headlights was particularly bad and the restoration made it look as good as it did the day it was installed. I think I paid about $35 or $40 for just the one headlight with the price being $65 for both. Typically the price will be closer to $75-$80 but that that's still cheaper than $300 or more buying new headlights. You can do it yourself if you feel comfortable and you can save a little more.

On my second Crossfire I had some deep scratches in one of the headlights and a professional was able to restore it to about 90% so even a headlight with a lot of scratches can be restored.

Most people don't realize that this can be done and that you don't have to buy new headlights.

For the most part. YES. And if it doesn't you can do it again which still saves you money. After the process, there is usually a coating that goes on the lens and that can start to peel after about 2 years, but you can have it redone and sometimes you can get a lifetime warranty and it won't cost you anything. In most cases it should last the rest of the time you own the car.

There are a number of things you can do to prevent your headlights from fogging up and turning yellow. As times goes on you may still get pitting and scratches from road debris so ultimately you may still have to use the restoration method.

The first step is to keep your lens clean and WAXED. This will greatly reduce the time it takes to go yellow.

If your lens is only starting to fog up, you can head down to Autozone or Pepboys and purchase headlight cleaner like PlastX or BlueMagic. Doing this regularly will make your lens last longer. You can also purchase lamp guards which are plastic sheets similar to what you can buy to protect cell phone and camera screens. They provide limited protection however and you will have to replace them more often than you would have to restore the headlights making it a questionable solution.

Headlight restoration is also a good business or service to compliment an existing auto detailing company.
There's a lot of people in need of headlight restoration that don't know they can get their headlights looking new again without replacing them.