I can get your headlights back to crystal clear.

Oxidized lenses read as neglect.

Everything else on the car can be straight — paint waxed, interior clean, service records in the glovebox — and two foggy lenses still make it look like it's been sitting in a yard. It's the first thing people notice from the front, and it's the one flaw that shows up in every photo if you ever go to sell it.

The cause is simple. Headlight lenses are polycarbonate with a thin factory coating on the outside. Sun breaks that coating down, and on this coast you get sun plus salt air, on a car that probably parks outside year round. Lenses start hazing at three to five years here. By eight they're gone.

Starting at $65, in your driveway.

Worth knowing what the alternative costs. A replacement headlight assembly runs roughly $150 to $370 a side on an older halogen car, $500 to $1,000 on HID, and $1,000 and up on a lot of newer LED vehicles — each side, before anybody touches it. Labor starts around $100 an hour, and on plenty of cars the bumper has to come off to get at it.

The UV coating is the whole difference.

Most headlight restoration is a polish and nothing more. Polishing strips off what's left of the factory coating and leaves bare plastic pointed at the sky. It looks great for a month, then hazes again, usually worse — and people decide restoration doesn't work.

I finish every lens with a Cerakote ceramic UV coating. That coating is what the factory put on and what a cheap job takes off. It's the reason mine stays clear.

Straight answer on what restoration can and can't do: AAA measured restored lenses at roughly 70% of factory light output, against about 20% for a clouded one. It's a big jump, and it isn't a brand-new assembly. I'd rather say that now than have you find out later.

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