Most people think that slippery conditions are the main cause of winter accidents.  At our shop we feel an important factor also includes the extended hours of darkness during the winter. More night driving in the winter makes your car’s lighting more critical.  

The first thing to do is to make sure your lights are clean and working.  Even if it is too cold to wash your car, you can wipe the lights off with a rag. If you have a burnt out headlight bulbs are cheap, usually $20.00 or less and are generally fairly inexpensive to change. There are exceptions, of course.

Something else we see are poorly aimed headlamps.  You can check this yourself by pulling up to a wall or your garage door with your lights on high beam.  The beams should hit the wall level and at about the same height as the lights themselves. If they don’t, you should have them aimed by your mechanic or body shop.   This is a relatively inexpensive procedure ($60.00)

Something else we see is dulling or fogging of the headlight surfaces.  This can reduce your vision of the road ahead. We have found that rather than replacing the headlamps ($250.00 to $2000 each)  we can usually polish out the damage and restore most of the light’s brilliance for about $25.00 each. These small costs are a bargain if it means you avoid a collision.  

Thank You,
Joe Polowski