this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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Meanwhile, only 30 years ago when we had sealed-beams in standardized shapes, you could replace a headlight for like $10. And the lens was actually glass instead of plastic prone to yellowing and abrasion.
Yeah and if you hit someone that glass shatters and stabs them. The plastic is shatter resistant.
Did you know shatter resistant glass exists? Like your windshield for example. The issue is plastic is cheap and easy to manufacture and nothing else.
Tempered glass is very hard to mold into a complex shape. Those plastic headlights shrouds are much cheaper to replace, it's the internals that are expensive.
Also that plastic you can just polish and they're like new.
They burned out and needed to be replaced. New ones should never burn out
So... put LEDs in the same form factor. Now you have lights that don't burn out and can be repaired. You can even use PWM to dim them.
You say that as if saving $10 on a bulb once every few years is worth the risk of spending $100s or apparently even $1000s if they get damaged.
There are reasons cars have been getting ever more unaffordable (above and beyond inflation), and stuff like bespoke model-specific headlights requiring complicated tooling to manufacture is one of them.
Cost wise, no it’s not worth it.
But you now have an item that
The adaptive headlights in my car are truly amazing, and every time I’m blinded by oNcoming headlight glare I wish everyone had them
Brighter is a negative trait in my opinion.
They’re nice until you need to replace them.
Those lights were absolute garbage though and the vehicles that used them got half the gas mileage compared to new ones due to their blocky shape and lack of aerodynamics.
Somehow, people could still see in the dark.
Never a good argument. We could transport goods with horses too. Never needed that fancy cart wheel.
And the ones who couldn't see crashed.
Just don't drive if you can't see adequately. Fuck.
Aerodynamic headlights should never ever cost $6k under any circumstances.
Greedy corporate executives ran out of ideas to grow their revenue so we have to deal with absurdity inflated prices.
Most dont cost $6k just these ones because they're adaptive lights
My Miata with pop-up sealed beams gets ~30 MPG. Any aerodynamic problems it has are due to being a convertible, not the headlights.