Headlights, Taillights & Mirrors in Dallas, TX

Six things worth knowing before you order

• A headlight lens is polycarbonate with a factory UV hardcoat. Once the hardcoat is gone the plastic yellows from the inside and no amount of polishing brings it back for long.
• Look for the DOT and SAE markings moulded into the lens. A lamp without them is a decorative part, not a road-legal one, and a Texas inspector can call it.
• The mounting tabs are what break, not the housing, and there are cheap epoxy-and-mesh tab repair kits that save a whole assembly for under twenty dollars.
• Powered mirrors with blind spot monitors have to match the vehicle's harness pin count. A three-pin mirror will physically bolt to a car that wants nine pins and then nothing works.
• Taillight gaskets harden and shrink, and a lamp that fills with water after a car wash is usually a five dollar gasket rather than a hundred dollar lamp.
• We keep pigtails behind the counter because a melted socket is the actual fault about half the times somebody buys a whole lamp assembly.
• Halogen, HID and LED versions of the same lamp share a body shape and nothing else, and the connector is the fastest way to tell them apart before ordering.
• Headlight levelling motors are fitted to most HID applications by law, and a lamp supplied without one will not pass a beam aim check.
• Sequential and non-sequential turn signal versions of the same taillight exist on several recent models, and they are not interchangeable without a module.
• Side marker lamps are the cheapest legally required lamp on the car and the one most often left broken after a corner impact.
• Third brake lights on hatchbacks and SUVs are frequently bonded into the spoiler, so replacing the lamp means replacing the spoiler on some applications.
• Mirror glass with a heating element has two spade terminals on the back. Glass without them is a different part and will leave a demist button doing nothing.