Being as February’s special is Mobile Headlight Restoration I figured why not take the time to explain a bit about the process and why you should use Royal Auto Glass & Tint to do your work.

For starters, (if you have not yet looked at our Headlight Restoration page) headlights on most modern vehicles are made from plastic that is vulnerable to elements such as the intense Tucson sunlight, acid rain, air pollution and sand particles impacting them while driving (not to mention bugs).  Due to this wear and tear the headlights become cloudy and in bad cases, yellow.  This is normal, but it degrades the look of your vehicle and also reduces how bright your headlights shine at night.

The process is fairly straight forward, it’s just sanding off the top layer of plastic with fairly rough sandpaper.  The rest of the steps are actually just undoing the damage the rough paper did while removing the Gunky Buildup. This is accomplished by repeating the sanding process with gradually smoother sandpaper until they are back to shiny plastic. (see video at the bottom of our Headlight Restoration page)

When I try and sell this service, sometimes people will say to me  ”I’ve seen this kit  at Auto Zone that I can buy and do it myself, it’s only $20.”  To that I say, like everything else there is a difference in professional grade products and those sold to the consumer direct.  Here are a few of the reasons you should spend the extra money to have them professionally done.

- The kit from Auto Zone starts at 600 grit sand paper, not nearly rough enough to get the bad buildup off.  (We start with 320 grit).

- The Kit from Auto Zone ends with 1000 grit paper.  This is still too rough of a grit to be a final product and leaves noticeable scratching on the headlight lens. (We end 3000 grit paper which leaves a smooth finish).

- We apply a special UV hard coat that will keep your headlight’s looking newer longer.  Theirs does not.

- We use a special orbital sander for a consistent finish.  With the kit you have to hand sand (Have fun with that)!

There are many other reasons why you should have your headlights restored professionally, but to be honest, the system from Auto Zone works just fine for headlights that have very light fogging.  The problem is no one ever notices that the headlights look bad until they are REALLY bad and too far gone to use the Auto Zone system.

Have a look at your headlights, most people don’t even realize they are really bad because it’s something that happens over time.  Check out our Headlight Restoration Page for examples and see that we can bring them back to new for you!