I am often asked, What is the difference between you and oh, say Ziebart, or maybe one of the number of service departments around Indy that offer Headlight Restoration services in their service departments?

I thought, Well, lets explore that question.

I had my wife take an old headlight from a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee (which was not the worst that I have seen) to Ziebart and paid, yes I PAID them, to restore this headlight. I'll show you the results later.

Then, I took the other headlight from the same vehicle to the Ray Skillman service department and again, I PAID them to restore that headlight. Those results will come later as well.

Both places said that they charge about $70 a set; I will include a copy of the receipt that I received from each place to show what I paid. (Remember, I took the headlight out and took it to them so they gave me a bit of a break on price.)

When I picked up the headlights, the conversations went about the same at each location. I told them that I owned and operated a Headlight Restoration Service, Bright Lights Now, and that I was doing a market research project because I have had customers asking me why I charge more than some other comparable services being offered in the area. Upon my inspecting their results, the outcome surprised even me. I could not believe that consumers were allowing themselves to be snookered into actually paying for what I (and, I am sure you will agree) would not consider restored to even a reasonable degree of acceptability. Really, they weren't much better than they were when I dropped them off. In each location there were before and after displays showing drastic results (these were no doubt provided by the manufacturer providing the materials or kit, in my humble opinion, this is very misleading).

The service writer at the Skillman service department, tried to explain to me that the problem remaining was because the inside of the headlight was also damaged and, that could not be repaired. I informed him that the damage was not on the inside and that I could fix the remaining damage on the headlight. His reaction showed surprise.

At Ziebart, the only response that I could get from the gentleman behind the counter was well that is good enough for OUR customers.

The following are photos that tell the story. You be the Judge.

Note: In conducting my research I actually visited these two companies. It is not feasible for me to frequent each company offering these services in Indianapolis and surrounding areas. However, in my experience and by talking to those who have visited other locations these results are very typical. By far, the majority of companies offering these services use the same types of kits and materials. How can you expect a different outcome from each? As the old saying goes; Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Photos show that I taped off 1/2 of the head light and finished what these other guy could not do.

From The Headlight Guy







First Photo is the "Ziebart experiment". Looking at the picture, the left side is what I finished, the right side is their "finished product"




Second Photo is the "Ray Skillman experiment". Looking at the photo, the right side is my work the left side is theirs.

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