You should get them restored and cleaned (it's actually on the outside of the lense although it looks like it's on the inside) so that your car looks better and so you get better visibility out of your headlights, making driving safer. I see some cloudy headlamps on cars and wonder how they can see the road at night. It can be pretty bad. You need clear headlights to drive safe.

There are a few ways to fix cloudy headlights. I even did it myself and I have pictures below showing before and after.

1. Go to a car wash that actually has people at it. I don't know what kind of car wash you call this but it's one that's not all automatic but has real people there. Two here in Madison care Octopus Car Wash and Mermaid Car Wash. They should offer this service. I don't know how much it is but I guess $50 per light or something like that.
   
   
2. Buy a kit. The one I bought over at Advance Auto Parts is by a company called Permatex (this link is to a video that shows how to use the kit). I think it was about $15 or $17. Not bad. Here's another kit that's about $16.
   
   
3. Do it totally yourself. You'll need what comes in that kit I mentioned but it might cost less. Here's how to do it on Wiki How: How to Clear Foggy Headlight Covers. You'll need sandpaper and car wax along with some water and some gloves.

It took me about 5 minutes per light with the less fine of the sandpaper. As I went to more fine, it took only 3 minutes per headlight. I kept dipping it in water. Once you're done with the sandpaper, they may still look a little dull but that's where the car wax or polishing liquid comes in. That reall shines it up and you may have to do it 3 times, like I had to.

But they came out really nice and look pretty new. The whole process only took about an hour. I figured that if I'd take it to Octopus, I'd have to wait around an hour anyway, so why not just do it myself? :-)

While my RSX was in the shop today, I got a nice loaner from Zimbrick Acura. It was a 2008 Acura TL.

I liked it. It had a lot of nice features inside - more than my RSX. Power seats, dual climate control, trip computer, XM Radio. leather interior, heated seats and a few other things. It handled nice. My RSX has better pickup when you tap the pedal but the TL had more horses. It had an automatic transmission but it also let you go into manual drive mode, which was fun. The stereo was good. I liked the satellite radio. The instrument display was very nice and fun to look at. It would have been cool to drive it at night and see how things looked.

I think any car I drive has to at least have a sun and moonroof. The TL did, of course.

The color is nice, too. I don't like silver cars much but they don't show dirt. I would think that this color wouldn't show much dirt either and it isn't silver. I'd have to tint the windows to the legal Wisconsin maximum if I'd get one, though. :-) 

So it was fun. I didn't expect to get a loaner but I don't go to the dealer much and being an Acura dealer it seems like their customers would actually expect loaner cars. I'm sure I paid for it somewhere in there, but it came in handy since I had a few appointments today to get to.

I'll give it a 4 out of 5 since I'm a big Honda/Acura fan.

Here's a short story...

I noticed not too long ago that when I started my car in the morning (a "cold start"), I'd hear a little extra rattle. I didn't like that. My car never used to do that. I figured there had to be a cure.

So I went to Checker to see what I could get to help. I also bought this Marvel Mystery Oil stuff but the guy there talked my into running some kind of detergent instead. He actually suggested putting in 2-3 quarts of automatic transmission fluid after draining the oil and then run it for 5 minutes before I put in new oil. So he talked me out of buying that stuff. He said that he never heard of any kind of additive doing any good to a car. Ok, the organic approach. Cool.

Well, I got home and since I thought I might spend a Saturday afternoon doing an oil change on my car... which I haven't done myself in years... which I don't really have the tools for. Ok, scratch that. So I went to Valvoline Instant Oil Change and had them run their "detergent" through the engine as they were changing the oil. That'll do it, right? Nope.

Ok, now what? Well, I remembered that the reason I was going to try that Marvel Mystery Oil was because of when I sold my first car - my 1979 Mercury Capri (a Mustang). Let's be honest, it ran like crap but someone bought it. As he was picking it up, he showed up with this can of oil in a red and black can. He poured it into the crankcase and said something like, "I put this in all my cars and it has done wonders." So ok, let's go get some and try it.

The oil was still pretty full from the recent oil change, so I just put a little bit in. Wow, the next 2 starts were good, but what about a cold start?

The next morning and every morning / every start since - no rattle... at all. Impressive.

I've decided to blog about this and so I did a little research on this stuff. It turns out, the military used to have huge drums of this stuff called "MMO" (Marvel Mystery Oil) and used it all the time. You can use it in your oil and in your gas tank, too (I'll have to try that next to get rid of another noise, which I think is a little weak sounding and annoying).

There's a good article here:

The Piper Cub Forum

And here's more info:

• Marvel Mystery Oil Web Site
• Buy Marvel Mystery Oil Here

-T 

Late last year, the heater stopped working one day. The lights worked and there was no fan and it was winter and it got cool in there. I had to get it fixed quickly and decided to try a local shop for 2 reasons. First, it was closer to my work than the Acura dealer. Second, I thought it would be less expensive than a dealer.

As it turned out, it wasn't just a blower fan (I had chceked the fuse myself before taking it in, of course) but it was a transistor. This transistor was just a small box with a plug on it, found under the glove box in my 2002 RSX. Well, the part was like $80 but the final bill came to $350. Since I didn't go to a dealer, they had to take a lot of time to dianose the problem. I even got one call after they had used 2 hours asking for more time since they could not find the issue yet.

What I learned here is that I should have taken it to the dealer instead of a local shop for this one. Yeah, it seemed just like a blower motor or something, but with all the electronics in cars today, it can easily be more than that - especially when you look at the climate control system in an Acura (which has a thermostat and does auto climate control - like on a lot of new cars today). The dealer wouldn't have taken 2 hours to diagnose the problem. I'd guess a half hour or less. The local shop had to buy the part from the dealer, so the price would have been about the same for the part.

So this has taught me that I need to think very carefully about where to take my car if it's not for simple maintenance like brakes or exhaust. I think I could have saved money going to the dealer in this instance.