TINTING 101

Hello [you]

Before making a snap decision to just quickly go to your nearest local tint shop to have your car tinted, I suggest that you do some research and decide which type/brand of tint you want to use.

Most tint dealers/installers carry only very specific brands, not all of them.

Some brands of tint are difficult to find locally and may not be found in many states.

Every brand of tint has different colors, compositions, characteristics, heat rejection, reflectiveness and visable light transmission(VLT=DARKNESS). Nearly all give 99% UV protection.

Warranties differ greatly too. And watch out for those! You may get one with a lifetime warranty against FADING but not COLOR CHANGE.

Every state has its own tint law regarding how every window can or cannot be tinted. Most state laws limit the amount of reflectiveness and VLT allowed on the front side windows, the back side windows and the rear window.

Solar Gard has a very nice State Tint Law chart(Adobe Acrobat Reader required).

View State Tint Law chart

To find out more about tinting check out these links...

Tintcenter

Tintdude Forum

to learn about the different tint film manufacturers check out these links...

Llumar
FormulaOne
Madico
3M
HuperOptik
Johnson
Sungard
Solar Gard
Suntek
V-Kool

There are some others. Some are cheap and some are expensive.

You should also go and check out your dealers/installers and actually view the tints and their work.

Finally, Enjoy your research! Have fun! And enjoy your newly tinted Prius!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AfonsoSilva\";p=\"100403)</div>

Afonso,

The degrading of the signals is due to metals in the film. HuperOptiks ceramics appearently does contain some metal. Probably, not much. However, some other auto owners (not Prius) have had problems with HuperOptiks and their NAV.

I'd see if your dealer would do what our member silly did prior to tinting. Heres the quote from his message in another thread.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(silly\";p=\"99442)</div>

I recently did an experiment between my Mazda and Prius. I have heavy tint in the back of the Mazda and set in the center of the back seat with my regular cell phone. I had 1 signal strength bar on it for the most part of 5 minutes. Next I set in the center of the back seat of the Prius and for the most part of 5 minutes I had 3 signal strength bars. Both cars were parked side by side in my driverway. Out side the cars I still got 3 signal strenght bars. I'll definately bet that the tint on the Mazda contans mostly metals. I haven't been able to find my original tinting papers for the Mazda but will keep looking.

BTW, I am looking at getting a bluetooth phone soon. However, Nextel only sells two, so I am looking at the Motorola i605. I still may wait till the merger of Sprint and Nextel to see what they may come up with in bluetooth.