Tampa headlight restoration and repair

October 14, 12:38 PMTampa Sports Car ExaminerMichael Berenis

Previous Next

2 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Tampa Sports Car Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Cloudy headlights in Tampa require repair and restoration. There is enough trouble on the roads here with out having foggy, yellowed headlights to create even more blind spots. If you have noticed a yellow film building up on your headlights, there is a solution to remove this nasty headlight gunk! Several services in the Tampa Bay area can come directly to your location and repair your headlights for under the price of replacement.

How headlights become dirty

Plastic is a porous surface when examined under an electron microscope shows us the surface is not actually smooth. It is rather spiky, with tons of valleys where dirt and grime can collect. This grime, pollution, dust, and oil all collect in the valleys on your plastic surface and turn yellow. You can't just wipe it clean either, because it is literally stuck into the valleys on your plastic surface. The only way to remove this discoloration is by sanding the surface down to fresh plastic, and applying a top coat sealant.

Top services in Tampa Bay offering headlight restoration and repair

Dr. Headlight

We Fix Headlights

Clear Again

How headlight restoration works

They start by prepping the surface of the headlight with a cleaner such as dish soap, car soap, etc to remove the oils and waxes. After the surface is free of oil and wax, they apply a special cream with a certain amount of grit. Rubbing this cream into the headlight uses the small amount of predetermined grit to effectively "sand" the headlight. This removes the oil, sand, and yellow gunk that is built up within the valleys of your plastic surface. If the headlights are really bad, a buffer or extremely light grit wet-sand paper may be applied with the cream.

After the surface has been cleaned and the headlight yellowing has been removed, there is a dull surface left over from the tiny scratches that were created during removal process. This can be fixed with a plastic sealant. The sealant fills in the cracks and protects against UV and pollutant damage to insure the headlights never become yellow again. Effectively smoothing the surface of the plastic and filling in all valleys seen in the electron microscope image above, the headlights are protected against future debris from building up. That is the secret behind headlight restoration! If you want to perform headlight restoration yourself, watch the how-to video below.

Video content: Headlight restoration process

Related articles:

• Tampa automotive HID kits
• Tampa Craigslist
• Palm Harbor, FL Autism fundraiser
• Bollea Toyota Supra unseen footage
• Tampa airport car rental
• Tampa Bay custom upholstery
• Tampa auto parts
• Tampa Bay performance parts and tuning
• What to do in Tampa?

Read more about the author's car at http://subaru-offroad.blogspot.com