WINDOW TINTING... - that's a pretty difficult one, especially, if you have a go at it with insufficient information.

I should start with: WHY? Why tinting? Well, the answer is "Australia", which means: It's pretty hot most of the time where I live. I do not know, if they still do it, but back then Ford - even Ford of Germany - have send their new developed cars to Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory in Australia for "Hot Climate Testing". And the sun burns everything, including cars. Currently I am preparing a paint-Job on my X-Type. The UV light damaged the clear coat, which is quite common. Well, tinting can't help there, but at least tinting helps keeping the temperatures in the car down, which means less A/C is required, plastic parts in the car last longer, and most of all: The headliner does last longer, because sagging headliners is also quite a common problem in Australia (I just re-did mine on the X-Type). According to the manufacturer's data, the 4mil nano ceramic tint, which I just bought, blocks 99% of the UV light and 99% is the IR light (IR translates into heat). And they give these 99% ratings on all their tints, which ranges from VLT 5% to 70%, which is pretty amazing, that there is no difference....

I already tinted the backlite of my van successfully 2 decades ago. It worked out perfectly back then.
Only now I know, why it was so easy, because I had perfectly suitable tinting film and because I tinted the backlite (=rear window) of my van, which is perfectly flat.
But when you want to tackle the backlite of the X-Type and put a tinting film on there, the story is a whole lot different - I tried, and the very first result looked like this:


And I am confident that there are people out there, who do a worse job than that and leave it there. But I spend a lot of time researching what I did wrong and how to do it right...


And as a result, I have now a perfectly tinted backlite.

So what is there to know?
Starting with the tinting film itself: Using the correct tinting film (from now on simply referred to as "tint") is paramount. And I do not know, what the story outside of Australia is, but in Australia the "tinting Mafia" seems to have full control:

It is not possible to buy tint in any shop in Australia, which is fit for purpose:
The "tinting Mafia" I am referring to are the tint-Shops. Their price to tint a backlite is AU$240! And they refuse to sell you the tint they have. Their supplier also refuses to sell me their stocked tint. Btw.: The tint they use in the local tint shop is called "Sun X". Looks like is being made in the US, but as just mentioned, if you don't have "a license to kill" you cannot purchase this tint in Australia - it is solely being supplied to the tinting-Mafia, which robs you blind.
Two decades ago I was able to buy from one of those tint-Shops that tint - that was in Sydney, but that was also a bit hush-hush.
So I ordered from 2 different sellers on Australian ebay 2mil tint. 2mil is the thickness, and it means: 2/1000 inch thickness. I measured the tint I received: it was in both cases 1mil! The first failed attempt above was done with that tint. I requested refund in both cases and received it. The tint available in shops here really does not seem to be any better. Also, I asked at the local Repco shop about tint - they did not have it in stock - I asked what the quality is like - the answer was: "It's crap, that's why we don't stock it!" After a very long search I found i the end exactly 1 ebay seller in Australia, who offered a tint, which promised to be something better - it was 2mil nano ceramic tint. I ordered that - it was indeed 2mil and I used this to produce the good result above. - I say a good result, but it could be better. I found not a seller for real proper tint, which is 4mil think and nano ceramic in China (Aliexpress).

So this was the most important: The correct tint. And most people would never realize that it is not their fault that their personal tint result looks like crap - it is because they are getting ripped off as they can only buy tint, which is unfit for purpose.

Also important: Know your local tinting laws. Find out the minimum VLT requirements: VLT = Visual light transmission. VLT 5% means that only 5% of the visual light can get thru the tint - VLT 35% means that 35% of the visual light can get thru.

But there is more to it that just getting hold of proper tint: You need to know a few things. There are many youtube videos, but many of them do not tell you everything - most of all they do not mention the DON'Ts, which are very important to know.

Tinting a flat bit of glass is easy, but a curved backlite like the X-Type has it is the highest grade of difficulty:
1. Check, which side of the tint has the CLEAR foil attached, which needs to be pulled off later.
2. Cut a bit of the roll slightly bigger than required. Plan it so that the side with the CLEAR foil will face you, not the outer glass, where you will place the tint first...
3. Prepare a soap solution. There are tips on the net to dissolve a spoon of soap powder in water. Well, I could not find a place, where to buy soap powder, but I ended up buying a block of pure soap, cut a few flakes off and mixed it with water in a sprayer. I was not too fond of the result - it was kind of too soapy - to "white". I then found the right stuff: "Johnson's Baby Shampoo" - mix about 6% with water in a sprayer.
4. Spray the soap solution onto the outside of the backlite.
5. Place the tint on there with the side with the clear film facing upwards - facing you. Cut it to size with a cutter knife. But hold the knife in a shallow angle towards the glass to avoid that you cut actually into the glass.
6. Use a squeegee to attach the tint to the backlite. Very important is the how, the direction - and definitely avoid creating folds / creases with that squeegee:


7. Start following the red arrows, then the yellow, then the white. Obviously the flat film will not be able to simply adapt to the curvature of the backlite. You will have "fingers" forming. do not create one big finger, but many many little fingers. Subdivide those fingers, which are too big with your own fingers into smaller fingers. Use the heat-gun. Heat up those fingers one after another for a few seconds (not too long or you will damage the tint), see the tint crumbling and shrinking and quickly flatten it with the squeegee. VERY VERY IMPORTANT: Do not create fingers facing to the sides. Only create fingers showing up or down! It is a property of that tint that you can only shrink fingers, which are pointing up or down!
8. Once the tint has been "heat-shaped" to match the contour of the backlite, prepare the backlite from inside of the car. You would have cleaned it properly before (without damaging the metal-strips of the window heater. Clean it again with soap water and clean it off with a lint-free cloth. Once it is seriously clean, spray soap water all over the backlite from inside.
9. Remove the headrests from the rear of the car and maybe fold the rear seats forward.
10. Pull off the upper clear foil off the tint. Then immediately spray soapy water all over the just exposed "gluey" surface.
11. Spray soapy water onto your hands so that you cannot damage the tint by leaving your fingerprints on the gluey side.
12. Now the difficult part: Carry the tint inside of the car and preferably have a helper (with also soapy water sprayed onto the hands) waiting on the other rear door to take over half of the tint and slide it onto the backlite from the inside (soapy tint-side onto soapy glass side). It will be a lot easier with the headliner removed (and I did that tinting job, while I had the headliner and rear seats and carpet removed anyway, but it should be possible, yet more difficult, with the headliner in the car. But definitely have the headrests removed as mentioned in "9.".
13. Now use the squeegee again and attached the tint again i the same manner as before on the outside - i.e. as shown in picture above.
14. Do not panic, if a few very small fingers remain (even though, it would be better if not), But accept that you will not be able to fix this on that same day. Wait over night and try again on the next day. Because meanwhile some of the water will have evaporated, the tint fill be able to stick better now.

Btw.: It was a real mess removing the old tint from the backlite. It took me about 1 day. Some proper idiot previous owner applied the tint totally wrong, which was, why I had to re-tint.

OK, and now for the 2 front windows:

There you see yourself what I meant with "idiot previous owner": What you see is the window with the old tint on! As you can see they did not remove the clear foil from the tint, and one has to wonder what kind of glue they used instead to make the tint with the wrong side stick to the glass. Anyway, the effect was, that looking thru those windows was like looking thru old hand-blown window glass - everything a bit blurred. After I removed that clear foil I had to hit the window-glass for at least 1 hour with a water pressure cleaner to get that glued on tint off - I real mess - I did that on grass so that the glass could not get damaged.


While "experts" tint those window glasses, while they are on the car, I personally think the result will be better, if you remove the window glass, and it is easier. Obviously don't let the glass fall out of your hands... Anyway: I had to remove my window glasses to be able to remove the horribly applied old crappy tint first. With the glasses removed, I can also cut the tint way more economically. This is now the proper tint, which I got from China, as Australian seller refuse selling me the "fit for purpose" stuff. See above: I placed the window onto the film and painted a white contour around it. Very important: Paint and cut it in such a way that that side of the tint with the clear foil will end up on then inner side of the glass in the end. I did the same as with the backlite above, only to find out that the curvature of the side windows does not require the use of a heat gun nor heat-shrinking. So everything was way easier. on the window glass I did not even bother placing the tint first onto the outer side - I went straight for the inner side (soapy water first on glass and hands and on the tint where the clear foil was removed).


But this is the picture of how I did it on the first side window, where I placed the tint onto the outside first, which is not required. Also note that before I did this in a roofed area outside, I did it inside of the house - thinking that would be better - but I chose a big table directly next to the stairway on the first floor: That was the worst choice I could make, because the air-flow in the house caused this area to be one where the dust-flow is worst - and every grain of dust caught between tint and glass will be visible later.


That's one side window done.


That's the thingy in the door, where the windows rest in. Quite dirty, hence I removed it for cleaning. It would be easier, if you were to remove that rubber only, without removing the bold holding that clamp in position. Removing the rubber alone is difficult enough. But definitely make sure you reassemble everything correctly before putting the glass back in. If the glass will not sit correctly between the rubber on both sides, it might break - the glass might also break, if you tighten the bolts with too much force. The picture above shows one of the two rubber clamps on each window viewed thru the gap from above after the window has been removed.


To get to the bolts (to open them) the removed the stuck on liner (behind the door trim) by softening the black sticky glue with the heat gun on the two top corners - I also heated those up again to make them stick again during re-assembly.


I opened the window roughly 12cm. This is the position I choose to pull out the window - I pull it out by first lifting the rear section of it and I slide it out going over the outside of the door-frame (AFTER removing the inner and outer rubber lips on the door).


That was the second side window. And I hope you can see, what I did here: When cutting off the bit for the first window, I placed the window already onto the tint in such a way that a big wedge-shaped section remained on the roll (rather than cutting it off as waste, which I could now use for the narrower front section of the second window - saving precious tint that way...


It might also help to not just use a squeegee, but also a lint free cloth to "press" the tint onto the glass.


View from the inside after tinting the front side windows with VLT 35%. This is the min. allowed here, plus I would not go any lower in the VLT anyway - you still want to be able to see the other cars in traffic... The rear windows are allowed to have lower tinting here. However, not for the future: Below VLT 15% is a bad idea (except on my panel van, where it is great to have VLT 5%). Also note the window-"surrounds": Brand new headliner-lining (faux suede).


This is the other front window after tinting from the inside. Also to be seen: Van with the flat backlite and VLT 5% tint applied.


And from the outside those VLT 35% still look very dark.


Job done.

 

I bought pre cut (still requires heat shrinking for rear window) nano ceramic tint film for my car and installed it a couple of years ago.
https://www.windowtintinginlv.com/ce...ular-tint.html

 

Peter, who else in Australia calls the rear window a "backlight"? Is it an English thing? I've never heard of it....

 

Hi Yorta, well I worked for Ford in Germany (where they use mainly English/US English) and I worked for Jaguar in Coventry (I was part of the X400 design team). The rear window was always referred to as "backlite", which might possibly be US-English (not sure), but it most definitely is in "automotive styling speak" the rear window of a vehicle, even according to google.
"Greetings" to the Kiama blowholes, which are close to Nowra - nice place - I have been there.
Might not be the very best idea to park a Jag - or any car for that matter - close to those blow holes - the salt in the air will eat the car away.

 

Wouldn't that then make the sunroof technically called a "headlite"?

 

No, we do not have a headlite in Engineering, just a headlight, and that is in the front...
But if you want something else instead of sunroof: Moonroof!
I'll soon post here new "findings" regarding tinting - some more tricks...

 

Here are some more words of advice about tinting, which hopefully someone will find useful:

Inspired by the tinting job on the X-Type, I continued tinting my windows - now on my van. And now I can confirm that it is not just a real pain to get the old tint off, if a previous owner did something funny putting the tint on, but if the tint, which you plan to remove, is old (in case of the van the tint was 25 years old) it is real difficult. So whenever there is any chance to remove the glass, where you want to remove the tint from, than this is the way to go, if the tint is old. Back then I even removed the backlite of my van from the van just to re-tint it. (PS: I have to correct myself here: I just remembered that I removed the whole tailgate from the van and the glass from the tailgate to repaint the tailgate - that is when I retinted the backlite removed from the car.)


Sometimes, if the tint is not on the glass for that long, you may either be able to pull the tint off by hand of with a water pressure cleaner. But in case of my front side windows of my van it was way beyond that: I had to use razor blade scrapers to get the old tint off. Real hard work. I ordered already a proper metal-holder for those razor blades and a box with 100 blades for next time. Once the tough bit was done and the old tint had been removed, except for a little bit of residue, I poured a bit of petrol onto the glass and with a paper kitchen towel I wiped off that gluey residue, still helped a bit by a razor blade (and with rubber gloves on the hand of course - petrol attacks the skin). And when the glass is then really clean, I clean it again with water (even water pressure cleaner), soap water, wipe it dry and clean it off with a lint free cloth before re-tinting it.


And something else noteworthy: Those cheap plastic squeegees may well put a few scratches into your brand new tint. This is not what you want. I ordered already a squeegee with rubber-edges, but until this arrives, I created one of those myself, by just covering the plastic squeegee with a bit of proper 1mm rubber (I had a 1mm rubber sheet on a roll).

But sometimes you just can't remove the glass from the car - like e.g. the backlite form the X-Type, where you really want to avoid using razor scrapers, if it can be avoided, to prevent damage to the metal-tracks of the heated backlite, and removing the old tint from the glass becomes lot more laborious when you can't remove the glass from the car - just like on the sliding side-window of my van, as I did not want to risk damaging it.

 

I used to do tinting. U can use a steamer machine to remove old tint.

 

What is a steamer machine? And if you do not have one, is there a way to "improvise" one?

 

It’s similar to the handheld steam iron type thing for clothes. But it blew out the stream a little more. Start in one corner. Pull back the tint. Steam into the peeling area and pull. It’s still a pain in the *** job to do. Especially if it’s old tint. Then clean up with some simple green cleaner. Razor blades and steel wool pads

 

Razor blades and steel wool excluded from rear window because of the defroster strips.


Item = using black plastic garbage bags is better than the white he shows.


This is the stuff that is UNBELIEVABLY easy and effective =

 

@ Dell: I mentioned the danger to the defroster strips before. However, depending how bad the old tint is, there might not be a way around razor blades - which is, why it took me a whole day at least to remove the old tint from the X-Type backlite. Using the razor blades there means that you need a very steady hand and that you guide the blade along the glass along the strips without touching the strips.

@NYC JAG: I might try to simulate some water steam next time - I unintentionally just confirmed that it works on newly tinted windows:
After completing the tinting on my second side window, I turned it around to fix a few blemishes in the glass - a few little holes, which ended up in the glass, when I welded a damage on the roof of the van some time ago: I applied this window glass repair fluid and placed those little plastic sheets over it. This then needs to cure in UV-light (= in the sun), thus I placed the window glass in the grass with the tinted side facing down... At the end of the day, 50% the tint detached itself from the glass. Reason: That was nature's steam machine: There was a lot of humidity in the grass (from dew over night) and the sun did the rest. So it definitely works on tint, which is not old. I might try next time to find a huge tub with hot water to submerge the window in, or spray hot water with a demister onto it, possibly supported by a heat gun - by judging by how very stubborn my 25 year old tint was, I have my doubts.

Btw.: The reason for re-tinting the front side windows of the van: I thought it would be a good idea to protect the van from the weather by placing a huge CLEAR tarps of it. But last summer that had a significant glass-house-effect and the temperatures under that tarps went ballistic and the tint of the windows in the front crumbled up in wave-shape - it became pretty hard to look thru them. And I re-tint now the rear side window also, because it got severely scratched over time by various cargo in my panel van.

 

Razors for the side windows. Steel wool only for rear defrost.

 

Sadly. Lol. Done it numerous times

 

OK, then very fine steel wool it is - for the backlite...

PS: I noted at the very beginning as to WHY one would tint the windows... - Yesterday I saw that episode of Big Bang Theory again, where Rajesh Koothrappali announced that he is having the tint in his car removed... - BECAUSE he wants everyone to see that he has got a girlfriend (Emily) now...