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Slide 1: ==== ==== Headlights that are yellow, brown, foggy, cloudy and faded out can make it hard to see the road at night and are very unsafe! We offer many tips and list all the different kits and products and even a professional training for headlight restoration for a profit. Check out our nationwide shop locator. If you would like to add your shop to our directory, please visit us today! Test your knowledge about the facts and dangers of poor performing headlights: Take our "Cloudy Headlight Quiz" www.HeadlightRestoration.net ==== ==== So you have yellow, cloudy, ugly headlights. You called the dealer to get a price to replace them and you cannot believe the price! What now? You have basically 2 options. 1. Get a quality headlight Restoration kit. 2. Find someone who provides a Headlight Restoration service. If you have decided you want to find someone to provide the service, how do tyou decide who to use? The fact is in some areas it is hard to find anyone who provides this service and in other areas there is a ton of services. The first thing to consider is this. Are there many people offering the service in your area? If there are, it can be both good and bad. Good because you have a selection to choose from, bad because many of them should not be performing this repair at all, and some are just not good at it. One person in my area of Jacksonville actually admits on video that he "ripped a headlight out" while buffing the headlight. This person has no business doing anything with a buffer what so ever! So, things to keep in mind when choosing the company to restore your headlight lenses. How much do they charge? Some people make the mistake of trying to find the cheapest service. Remember this saying is true and always has been. "You get what you pay for!" The truth is cheaper is almost never better. You should find someone who is in the middle price range and who has been in business for a long time. (2-3 years.) Why should they be in business a long time? Because those people care about their business and have a track record to prove it and know what it takes to succeed. That is customer satisfaction! Why middle price range? Well, you do not want the cheapest because he will not care how good the service he performs is... he will spend as little time as possible on it and expect you to understand, you will not have high expectations because you are not paying much so you WILL compromise and you will get what you pay for.
Slide 2: You do not want the most expensive because they often pay a lot on advertising and defray the cost by charging more, and rely more on quantity to make a living rather than quality! What you want is a family business (or similar) who relies more on word of mouth advertising because he does a good job and cares about his customers. Did you know there is more than 1 way of effectively "restore" headlight lenses? This is very important when deciding who you will use to restore your lenses. There are only two ways to effectively restore the headlight lenses. Anything and everything else is hype and lies. Whatever method they use they need to be skilled at either or both! Usually they use one method and know nothing about the other or try to demonize it if they do, or they make wild outlandish claims about the service as if this was the greatest invention since the light bulb. The 2 effective methods are almost identical. However, they differ in the restoring to clarity phase of the restoration process. In other words, how they make them clear and shiny again. There are some drawbacks to both methods. This is a very important consideration. One method many use is the application of clear to the lenses. There are some very serious draw backs to this method. 1)Clear is paint, and paint needs something to adhere to in order to stick to the surface it is painted to. The problem with most that use this method is they have no training in the application of automotive finishes. Case in point: one local dealer here in Jacksonville uses someone who applies Clear coat paint to the lenses he restores. Many of those headlights he has clear coated have the clear coat peeling off the lenses. There were at least 20-30 cars he had "restored" that were peeling. 2)There are basically 2 types of clear coat. Single stage paint and 2 part clears. Single stage clears are super cheap, around $20 a gallon whereas 2 part clears range any where from $100 a gallon to $250 a gallon depending on brand. Only 2 part clear has UV protection. Another draw back that discourages someone from using this quality 2 part clear is the waste associated with their use. The 2nd part of the clear is a catalyst or hardener which means whatever you do not use has to be discarded. The clear will harden within a few hours even if sealed. The average pair of lenses needs less than 2 oz. of spray-able clear the rest is waste. It is also very difficult to accurately mix very small quantities of clear. 3)They also need the right spray equipment to properly atomize and spray automotive clear. You have to use a full size spray gun and they need to know how to properly maintain and clean this expensive equipment. My recommendation is do not use a service that applies clear to your lenses unless they are a trained automotive paint technician and have access to the right equipment. The 2nd method relies on buffing to restore clarity to the lenses. We have used both methods and prefer buffing for numerous reasons.
Slide 3: Another draw back to the use of clear not mentioned above is it is difficult to get it to "hide" all of the sand scratches caused by the restoration process of this service. Since it needs something to "bite" into you cannot sand with anything finer than 400-600 grit sand paper. If you do you run the risk of adhesion failure mentioned above. With buffing however, you can buff out nearly 100% of any and all scratches. A good quality paint shop will wet-sand and buff any painted repairs they do. Wet-sanding and buffing a new paint repair can be the difference between an awful, less than mediocre repair to a quality show room paint finish. All surface imperfections in the paint can be repaired by wet-sanding. It is this principle of basic paint repair that makes this restoration process so effective. There are however, some drawbacks to this method as well. Buffing compound is a type of liquid paste or similar and it tends to hide the scratches you are trying to buff by acting as a wetting agent. Even the most skilled paint technician has to pay attention to this detail when buffing out sand scratches. The problem with this service is it is an easy repair but it does take skill to effectively wet-sand and buff. Most who offer headlight restoration services just are not qualified. They simply do not have the right kind of experience. The job may look good when they finish but once the compound dries you will see everything they missed and it can be very disappointing. The other problem with this method is you have one protection against UV damage from the future. Keep in mind though unless they use a 2 part clear the clear will not have UV protection either. There is something you can do to protect the lenses though. It is as simple as waxing them. I have seen cars 1 year old with the paint ruined because the car owner did not wax his paint job. Wax and polymer Sealants are what is know as sacrificial barriers. The wax or sealer forms a barrier to the elements and is "sacrificed" instead of your paint job. This is why regular paint maintenance is so essential to the life of your car's paint job. So applying a wax or automotive paint sealer to your headlights regularly will go a long way towards protecting them from future damage. It is worth pointing out that the headlights never had any UV protection in the first place. Again my recommendation is use a qualified automotive paint technician when using this method of the service. An automotive painter will have specialized skills that only he will have. And as I have outlined he will need those skills to properly restore your headlight lenses to like new appearance. www.headlightcare.com Author: Dana Lind http://www.headlightcare.com We own an automotive paint restoration company. We have been offering our services since 1999 and have an even longer history in the paint business. We run our business based on old
Slide 4: fashioned family values. We believe the customer should be happy and satisfied no matter what. Visit our website today. You really are important and deserve quality products. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dana_Lind ==== ==== Headlights that are yellow, brown, foggy, cloudy and faded out can make it hard to see the road at night and are very unsafe! We offer many tips and list all the different kits and products and even a professional training for headlight restoration for a profit. Check out our nationwide shop locator. If you would like to add your shop to our directory, please visit us today! Test your knowledge about the facts and dangers of poor performing headlights: Take our "Cloudy Headlight Quiz" www.HeadlightRestoration.net ==== ====