This is the entire job, start to finish. It takes about two hours a car and it happens wherever the car is parked.
Painter's tape around the whole lens. Sanding slurry on clear coat leaves marks that are a lot more expensive to fix than a headlight.
The heavy cut. This is what takes off the dead factory coating and the oxidized layer underneath. The lens goes completely opaque at this stage — that's supposed to happen, and it's the part that scares people watching.
Each grit removes the scratch pattern the one before it left. Skip a step and you can see it in the finish afterward, usually as a haze that never quite clears.
The lens starts coming back to clear. By 3000 it's smooth enough that the remaining cloudiness is microscopic scratching, not oxidation.
Takes out the last of the 3000-grit marks and brings the optical clarity back so light passes straight through instead of scattering.
The step almost nobody does. Bare polycarbonate with no coating will start hazing again within months on this coast. The ceramic coating replaces what the factory put on and what the sanding took off. This is why my work carries a warranty and a $25 polish doesn't.
Same angle, same light, side by side. I do this on every car — sixty-some of them so far.
If a lens I sealed clouds up inside a year, I come back and redo it and you don't pay again. That's the whole policy. It isn't complicated because it doesn't need to be — the coating either holds or it doesn't, and I'd rather find out on my dime than argue with you about it.
What the warranty doesn't cover is physical damage: rock chips, a cracked housing, or moisture inside the assembly. Those are replacement problems, not restoration problems, and I'll tell you if that's what you've got before I start.
Restoration doesn't equal new. AAA measured restored lenses at about 70% of the light output of new ones. That's a large improvement over roughly 20%, and it's not the same as a new assembly. If you want factory output, you want new housings, and on a lot of cars that's several hundred dollars each.
Some lenses are past it. If the damage is inside the lens rather than on the surface, or the housing is fogged internally from a failed seal, sanding the outside won't fix it. Send me a photo and I'll say so.
It needs decent weather. The coating has to go on a dry lens and cure. Rain moves the appointment unless you've got a garage or a carport.
Text me a picture of the headlight in daylight and I'll tell you whether it's a restoration job, a replacement job, or something you can leave alone for another year.
843-261-5780 Text a photo of your headlight and I'll tell you straight whether it's worth doing.Texting starts a conversation with Dane — no list, no automated marketing. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out, HELP for help.