Has anyone used the roll type "do it yourself" window tint film ? If so, the good, the bad, the ugly please. Thanks, Darrel.
Outline... sort of... maybe... Not so sure about the roll tint type, but my brother has a tint shop and I often help. All window tint is DIY or PFSTDI (pay for someone to do it). It's all hand done, there is no maching that puts tint on a car. Now the ugly about tint, well it will look ugly if you don't take your time and do it right along with everything else in the world. The Bad... well it will make the car look bad if you buy the cheap wally mart tint, because it will turn a purple-ish color after it sees the sun for a while, so bad choice. The Good.. makes your car look better. Many percentages (20% is the lowest you can go to have it legal, even though most cops won't pull you over if you have lower.) Also the higher the percentage the lighter the tint is, and vise versa. The tint will last years, probably 3+yrs. It also keeps your car cooler than without and also benefits the A/C by holding the temp in. That means less refills and you save more money. DIY: You don't have to be chip foose to tint windows of course, but it can be a little tricky and won't look so hot if you don't prep. What you need: Razor blades Plenty of shop towels Soapy water in a squirt bottle A "tint card" which you can probably get at any local parts place for a couple of bucks. Heat Gun* First start out with a small window to determine if this is for you. Squirt the warm Soapy water on the inside AND OUTSIDE of the window. While it is wet you pass the razor blade over the glass to get all types of gunk off. Then wipe it down and you can repeat if there was a lot of dirt and gunk. Once you have both the outside and inside clean you want to start to cut your tint to a good size. Get an approx. measurement and cut out a square shape of tint. Then wet the tint with the soapy water and put it on a clean winshield or back glass so it doesn't mess up. Then wet the outside of the window once again. Now transport the piece of tint back to the outside of the window and trim with a razor or Olfa knife. This is the hardest part and the longer and more careful you do it the better it will look. Once it's trimmed out then squirt the windshield or piece of glass once again and lay the tint down. Wipe down the outside and soak the inside of the window deppending on which side the sticky film is on. You will most likely do opposite windows. With the tint on the windshield you can now carefully take off the plastic cover and wet the sticky side of the tint. MAKE SURE YOU USE A LOT OF SOAPY WATER!!! The more water the easier it is to move it around. Now carefully move inside your car and put the wet tint on the window. With that done you can now move on to get all the air bubbles out. Now fold a towell in quarters and put the card inside (the napkin catches all the water and will needed to be tossed and replaced). Start from the center and move to the outermost points and work in a star patter untill all the bubbles are gone. There may be tiny bubble and you will have to poke those with a razor so the air will be able to escape and then pass the card over it. *Now if there is a reoccurring bubble that will not go down you may have to use a heat gun, or a hair dryer on the coldest setting and slightly pass over the bubble in 30 sec intervals. Hopefully this will give you an idea and a small outline of what it takes and how to do a job like this. If you feel that you are not up to it there are plenty amount of places that will do it for 100-200 bucks. CAUTION!! OHIO TINT IS OFTEN THE WORSE!
as for the cops pulling you over for "too dark of tint",...check your local laws. what is legal in one state isnt always in another.
That is true.....check your local laws. From my personal experience......Use lots of soapy water.I use a mixture of approx. 1/5 oz. of baby shampoo to 1 qt. of water. The baby shampoo leaves the car smelling fresh. I think using dish liquid is too harsh on most tints...especially,those from Wally-World that I use.
just had mine done by a "pro."...$180 ... he said not to use anything with...ammonia.. in it...that will turn it purple . ...ya'lls friend frank... P.S. or maybe ...got stopped by the state police the other day riding in a friends truck with dark tint. he stopped us for ''' suspicious driving" . he checked the tint and said it was 20, can't be more than 35 in Ga. he didn't give him a ticket but said the next one might.
Don't ya mean less than 35%......the lower the percentage,the less light comes through.....correct me if I'm wrong
So I guess the 2 layers of 5% and 1 layer of 20% I had on my truck in high school wasnt legal? I always heard that if you couldn't read a business card through it that it wasn't legal. On that truck, you couldn't really see the card, period! I also tint my windows myself. Like stated above, take your time - that's the most important part. I've heard what causes the purple tint is when cleaners such as windex with ammonia have been used on the tint. There are aerosol windows cleaners taht are sold that are "tint safe", with no ammonia. I've been using them for years now and haven't had any tint turn purple.
The bad: If you get window tint without metallic properties, you don't get UV protection and your tint will turn purple or fade. If you do get top of the line tint with metallic particles and UV protection, it will prevent your radar detector from working! For me, that is really bad. Also, the metallic in the tint makes your car more 'visible' to radar/laser. Just like a white car can be 'seen' for miles, while a black car often is not registered until feet away from the LEO. Just a heads up. Dave
I guess I bought a better quality tint or something, I haven't had much problem after I started using the non-ammonia cleaners. Maybe it had metallic properties? Recently, I bought a big roll of "professional quality" tint from a wholesale supplier. I found that it was MUCH easier to install. It didn't rip as easy, which made it easy to cut and install.
Maybe I'll try it on one of the small windows. If it goes well I'll move to the next, if not, I'll take it to a shop. Thanks for all the info guys .
Good to hear from ya Jim !! Check out my post in cosmetic " Big bumper slide update/pics" . There's a couple of the front end mods there. It hasn't gone to paint yet. Everytime I think it's a go something pops up. Was hoping to drive it to Round-up but I guess I'll just hitch a ride and check out everyone elses Mavs. Oh well, might get to swwipe some ideas . Keep in touch. Darrel
