CX_MCHNE
Thread Necromancer
- :
- CA
- :
- 2019 GTR
So I ponied up for ceramic and it's been "curing" a full week now.
Tinting is awesome!
I could only find one guy within an hour's drive of me that would do 3M ceramic (widely praised) tinting for me. A couple other places told me it's because ceramic is only done in climates much hotter than northern California. Luckily, the one guy is authorized by 3M, open Saturdays, he's on my way to work, and of his 36 yelp reviews 35 are 5-star! He's a super nice guy, been doing this 25 years, and happily answered all my many questions.
Ok, tinting isn't magic, but it's good.
For crystalline on the windshield, ceramic the other 7, I could only talk him down to $700. But you get what you pay for. He wasn't sure where I was seeing 3M ceramic only cost 20% more than Color Stable, but he pays like triple, and it needs to be applied differently. So $700. And my car was going be so much cooler, both in appearance and interior temperature, for its entire life. When I picked up the car, before I paid him, he promised me those spots were all going to disappear and the tint would look perfect. I should give it a week parked outside at most for the normal, trapped residual water to disappear. He looked puzzled when I asked how the water got out, and explained to me that sunlight heats up water and hot water evaporates. A quick googling confirmed some water pockets are totally normal and temporary.
Tinting is a total scam industry and I'm a fool.
A week later those obvious water bubbles are still there. And all the little bubbles I started seeing on closer inspection are there also. I still have 5 to 20 little 1-2mm blemish/bubbles on each window showing no signs of going away. The handful of little 1-inch long wrinkles on the windshield are still there too. I'll be going back tomorrow to demand satisfaction. He'll tell me what I'm seeing will go away eventually, or is within tolerance, or I'm the first person to think this it's an issue, and refuse to correct it. I'll let him know I'll be posting a negative review. It won't help.
Worse, I'm noticing no difference in internal temperature when my car sits in the sun at work. Which is the reason I spent the $700 in the first place. I thought the main reason the interior got hotter than the outside temperature was visible and IR light transmission through the glass, and that this tint's roughly 50% Total Solar Energy Rejection would kill a fair amount of that. But parts of the dash/doors in direct sun still feel too hot to touch on an 80 degree day. Driving along with the A/C up, sunlight on my arm/lap still feels uncomfortably warm. I do think this guy is using genuine 3M products (I at least saw 3M branded boxes and legit displays, and he's in good standing w/ 3M), but I don't think my comfort or the longevity of the soft-touch and leather parts of my interior have been significantly improved.
And I'm learning other consequences of tinting that I somehow missed in my optimistic research. Like that headlights behind me now reflect off every defroster line. Was thinking it might just be me, or that it just needs to "cure" more, but I'm glad to see all the tint professionals chiming in on tintdude.com saying that nighttime unusabillity of you rear window because of this defroster line glare is totally normal; it's my fault for trying to see out my back window. Or that I'll need to choose between slower driving or more frequent speeding tickets, because even during the day that slight rippling over the defroster lines means I can't see my rear view clearly.
Anyway, this isn't the first time I and my money were easily parted. But I'm posting this as advice to any considering first-time tinting. If I had the choice again and could get it done a couple hundred bucks cheaper, without any noticeable blemishes, I wouldn't. Visual clarity is reduced. It looks like I'm looking through a thin piece of plastic stuck to my glass. I know, duh. I went 30% on the 2 front windows, which isn't dark enough to really look cool or block enough solar energy, but I'm still risking a ticket. I paid for top-quality name-brand nano-ceramic and crystalline film, but my car is no cooler for it. I guess my car looks almost noticeably better now? And maybe it would stay slightly cooler in the desert? But those tiny benefits are, for me, far outweighed by the drawbacks and expense.
Tinting is awesome!
I could only find one guy within an hour's drive of me that would do 3M ceramic (widely praised) tinting for me. A couple other places told me it's because ceramic is only done in climates much hotter than northern California. Luckily, the one guy is authorized by 3M, open Saturdays, he's on my way to work, and of his 36 yelp reviews 35 are 5-star! He's a super nice guy, been doing this 25 years, and happily answered all my many questions.
Ok, tinting isn't magic, but it's good.
For crystalline on the windshield, ceramic the other 7, I could only talk him down to $700. But you get what you pay for. He wasn't sure where I was seeing 3M ceramic only cost 20% more than Color Stable, but he pays like triple, and it needs to be applied differently. So $700. And my car was going be so much cooler, both in appearance and interior temperature, for its entire life. When I picked up the car, before I paid him, he promised me those spots were all going to disappear and the tint would look perfect. I should give it a week parked outside at most for the normal, trapped residual water to disappear. He looked puzzled when I asked how the water got out, and explained to me that sunlight heats up water and hot water evaporates. A quick googling confirmed some water pockets are totally normal and temporary.
Tinting is a total scam industry and I'm a fool.
A week later those obvious water bubbles are still there. And all the little bubbles I started seeing on closer inspection are there also. I still have 5 to 20 little 1-2mm blemish/bubbles on each window showing no signs of going away. The handful of little 1-inch long wrinkles on the windshield are still there too. I'll be going back tomorrow to demand satisfaction. He'll tell me what I'm seeing will go away eventually, or is within tolerance, or I'm the first person to think this it's an issue, and refuse to correct it. I'll let him know I'll be posting a negative review. It won't help.
Worse, I'm noticing no difference in internal temperature when my car sits in the sun at work. Which is the reason I spent the $700 in the first place. I thought the main reason the interior got hotter than the outside temperature was visible and IR light transmission through the glass, and that this tint's roughly 50% Total Solar Energy Rejection would kill a fair amount of that. But parts of the dash/doors in direct sun still feel too hot to touch on an 80 degree day. Driving along with the A/C up, sunlight on my arm/lap still feels uncomfortably warm. I do think this guy is using genuine 3M products (I at least saw 3M branded boxes and legit displays, and he's in good standing w/ 3M), but I don't think my comfort or the longevity of the soft-touch and leather parts of my interior have been significantly improved.
And I'm learning other consequences of tinting that I somehow missed in my optimistic research. Like that headlights behind me now reflect off every defroster line. Was thinking it might just be me, or that it just needs to "cure" more, but I'm glad to see all the tint professionals chiming in on tintdude.com saying that nighttime unusabillity of you rear window because of this defroster line glare is totally normal; it's my fault for trying to see out my back window. Or that I'll need to choose between slower driving or more frequent speeding tickets, because even during the day that slight rippling over the defroster lines means I can't see my rear view clearly.
Anyway, this isn't the first time I and my money were easily parted. But I'm posting this as advice to any considering first-time tinting. If I had the choice again and could get it done a couple hundred bucks cheaper, without any noticeable blemishes, I wouldn't. Visual clarity is reduced. It looks like I'm looking through a thin piece of plastic stuck to my glass. I know, duh. I went 30% on the 2 front windows, which isn't dark enough to really look cool or block enough solar energy, but I'm still risking a ticket. I paid for top-quality name-brand nano-ceramic and crystalline film, but my car is no cooler for it. I guess my car looks almost noticeably better now? And maybe it would stay slightly cooler in the desert? But those tiny benefits are, for me, far outweighed by the drawbacks and expense.