Cloudy or discolored car headlights can dramatically reduce visibility

by Herbert Weisbaum

Monday, January 7th 2019

Sunlight does more than age the paint on your car, it clouds the protective plastic coating on the headlights and that can dramatically reduce their effectiveness.

"As they get older, we see a yellow film on them. They become cloudy and that becomes a real safety concern,” said Greg Brannon, AAA's director of automotive engineering.

The inside of the headlight is just fine, but as the plastic coating deteriorates, the amount of light getting through is greatly reduced.

"If you think about it like a shade that's pulled down over the light, it's blocking that light from getting out of the lens,” Brannon said.

A tests had done on headlights from two popular sedans that were approximately 11 years old. When on low bream, they only provided 22 percent of the light created by a new headlight operating at full

capacity.

That’s why AAA encourages you to check the headlights as part of your regular maintenance. That becomes especially important, Brannon told me, after the vehicle turns three years old.