Best way to protect new headlight housing?

I wonder how much the long brushes that get drug over the truck from front to rear in an automated car eash wear on the headlight coating. I use Delta Sonic car wash, no spinning brushes, but the straps that slide over the truck must be mildly abrasive and the front end takes them full on.

 

Having recently retired after 36 years in manufacturing, I can assure everyone that everything in manufacturing is a compromise. As you can see in the above (and very informative) post, headlight lenses are made out of a different material than taillight lenses. The big difference in the choice of materials is impact resistance. Truth be told, headlight lenses take a beating on the road and impact resistance was deemed more important than UV resistance in this case.

Would it be possible to manufacture a headlight lens that was both impact resistant and had better resistance to UV rays? Of course it would. The big question is how much it would cost. Remember, our trucks are pretty expensive right now. Making everything out of materials that would last forever would be prohibitively expensive.

I know somebody is going to suggest that they make headlight lenses out of PMMA because it is so much more UV resistant than Polycarbonate. Now I ask those people; how often are you willing to replace your headlights because the lens cracked from an impact instead of oxidation? See, it's a tradeoff.

 

Much truth re impact. Same reason you see windshields up front take more pitting etc versus side or rear.