One of the coolest auto services ever
February 11, 2009 @ 12:33 pm
Like millions of Americans, I drive an older car—a 10-year-old Toyota with 180,000 miles, to be precise. I live in the city, park on the street and only drive a couple times a week, so buying a new car just hasn’t made much sense.
But over the course of the past year or two, I had become painfully aware that it was harder and harder to see at night anytime it rained or I was on dark side roads. My headlights had yellowed with age and were cloudy instead of clear and transparent. If a car was riding next to mine, I could plainly
see how much brighter its lights were and
how much more of the road was illuminated. It was borderline embarrassing, but I thought my only option was to replace both headlight assemblies at a cost of more than $200 each. As you can imagine, I wasn’t real excited about that proposition.
When I came to work recently and heard that we had a new service to refurbish headlights like mine, I almost flipped a few cartwheels. What a fantastic idea! The restoration service entails using a sanding disc and a special compound to remove the yellowing and surface defects from the lamp lens. This is followed with another step to polish the lens surface. (We use
3M’s system, but a Goo
gle search will turn up other similar products.) We charge $89 for the service, and to me, this is a bargain compared to the alternative.
The average car on the road is 9 years old, so I know I’m not alone in this quest for better, brighter lighting. I asked our resident photographer to snap a few photos of my Toyota’s transformation so you could see for yourselves what a difference it can make.
The first night I drove home with my “new” headlights was akin to an awakening. I saw potholes and road features I haven’t seen in ages, and I’ve driven this same road for nearly 8 years. I was thrilled—and shocked at how little I’d been able to see before. My only regret? The fact that a snowstorm kept me from having this done before I drove 600 miles to Pennsylvania over the holidays.
Pothole: 1, Motorist: 0 How one pothole caused $5,800 in damage
February 6, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
The weather forecast is finally promising warmth and relief this weekend , but a brand new crop of potholes is likely to pop up as a result.
This will come as really bad news to one client, whose 2002 BMW 325 recently required $5,800 in repairs after it struck a pothole near Irving Park Road and I-90/I-94 in the city. The pothole jarred the vehicle so abruptly and severely that the car suffered extensive damage:
- The passenger side head airbag deployed, and replacing it took several hours because we had to remove the headliner and several dashboard trim pieces. (The photos to the right show the deployed airbag.)
- The airbag control module (computer) needed to be replaced, along with the right side impact sensor for the airbag.
- The steering rack was bent and had to be replaced. (This isn’t a component you can repair.)
- The pothole destroyed a wheel and two tires. And not surprisingly, the wheel alignment was knocked out of whack. To return it to specified limits, we had to modify the strut mounts on both sides of the car.
Fortunately, the client’s insurance company paid a substantial portion of the repair bill. And while this is a highly unusual case, we urge you to be on the alert for potholes eager to dish out a dose of damage.
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Like millions of Americans, I drive an older car—a 10-year-old Toyota with 180,000 miles, to be precise. I live in the city, park on the street and only drive a couple times a week, so buying a new car just hasn’t made much sense.
see how much brighter its lights were and how much more of the road was illuminated. It was borderline embarrassing, but I thought my only option was to replace both headlight assemblies at a cost of more than $200 each. As you can imagine, I wasn’t real excited about that proposition.
