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What's the best way for me to remove the window tint from my car. I want to make sure that I do it right, and not make a huge mess. The reason why I want to remove the tint is that because I hate tinted windows, they just give me an awful closed in feeling. They also make night driving a little harder for me...

The windows are also scratched from when they go down, so I am wondering what parts I need to fix it from not scratching the window. I'm thinking that it is a clip of some kind that is rubbing against the glass.

to put it simply.....removing window tint is a pain in the butt. Basically you just peel one corner and pull. It's the sticky goo you'll be left with. Goo gone works very well at removing adhesive. So you may want to try that. Removing the door panels may be a good idea so they don't get covered with gooey mess.

i just removed my tint recently and found goo gone to be helpless. get a brand new pack of blades and just scrape the stuff off while spraying some glass cleaner on constantly. very easy with a new blade, very hard with anything but a new blade. also i didnt have much of a problem with mess on the door panel, except it gets wet from the glass cleaner.

hope that helps

If you go the blade route be VERY careful on your back window, my sister removed that nasty purple tint on our old civic and started scraping it off with a blade but cut most of the rear defrost filament, it wasn't fun in winter or on cold mornings.

Anyone try just rubbing alcohol? It works for me with almost everything, although I've never tried it on wondow tint residue.

Steve

If rubbing alcohol won't take the sticky stuff off, then I wouldn't bother. That is my secret "clean-up-nasty-sticky-crap" tool: rubbing alcohol!

i heard warm water helps.....but i never tryed it. when i removed tint on a old 323 i jus used a bunch of new razors and fantastic.....thats all i had

I've heard ammonia helps too. Spread it on, cover it with plastic or something so it doesn't evaporate, then heat with a heat gun from the other side to loosen stuff up... Never tried it myself, though.

Yes! Ammonia fumes, so good for human brain!

Keep away from that i say, stick with rubbing alcohol.

Brain cells... we have so many.... :)

j/k

Straight blade'll be the best for the front and side windows. I would also recommend rubbing alcohol for the rear as you don't want to cut the defroster filament (as everyone's already mentioned). I'd get some 91% or higher alcohol as it's much better at removing gook.

-Brian

When removing tint from all windows (except the back glass with the defroster grids) always use new, sharp razor blades and spray with water/liquid dishwashing soap solution as you go. Dull razor blades have a very high possibility of scratching the glass and scraping on dry glass can also scratch it.

The tint on the back glass is the hardest to remove. What vrg3 said about using plastic is what many window tinters use. Get black plastic garbage bags cut to the glass area of the window. You'll need to spray the glass heavily with a solution before applying the plastic bags over it. Here is where trial and error come in as well as lots of patience. Depending on what brand window film is on the glass, how long it's been on, etc. will determine how difficult it is to remove. Different solutions work for different brand window films because their adhesives are all made differently. Simple Green, professional strength Windex (or any ammonia product -- and yeah, it's bad for the brains and body), or industrial strength 409 are some of the solutions you can try. Window tinters have access to other products that only their suppliers carry but those afore-mentioned products come pretty close to them.

Now, spray the solution (product + water) on the back glass, put the garbage bags over the wet glass, and let it heat up in the direct sunlight for one to three hours. This will soften the adhesive under the film. If the solution starts drying out from under the plastic, lift the plastic and spray more solution and cover it back up and keep it in the sun! Sometimes it will work out that the entire film on the glass can just be peeled off with just some spots of adhesive remaining. At other times, just about anything you try will not work so well. This is the easiest way to get the film off but itis still a royal pain! If the sun is not available, perhaps a heat gun may help from the outside of the glass. The tempered glass can take a lot of heat so glass breakage shouldn't be a problem; however, a few have been broken by a heat gun concentrating heat in one spot for too long.

Most likely, you'll end up having to peel off the film in pieces even after following the above directions. Then, you'll need to use the solution with a plastic tool such as a plastic scraper, spatula, whatever that is rigid or use a white scrubby pad found in grocery stores (WARNING: do NOT use the green scrubby pad as it WILL scratch your glass!) and scrub away, all the while spraying the solution. You won't be using elbow grease -- a lot of hand, finger, and wrist grease!

But if you've got $40 to $60 to spare, take it to a tint shop and let them do the job. It can easily take 3 hours or more removing the film from the back glass. The tint shop may use special chemicals that does it in a shorter period of time or use a steamer that steams off the film (but usually some adhesive residue still needs to be manhandled off).

sounds like SOMEONE here has or does work at a tint shop....

Yeah, I've done some. Just wanted to leave some tips as to what's involved. I know the guys and gals on this forum are proud of their cars and want them to look nice and not ruin them by mistake. I've had to do a number of tint removals and I've asked a lot of tinters besides going to seminars and training sessions and tint removal from the back glass is not relished by window tinters. A friend of mine has personally tinted about 20,000 cars (no, that's not a misprint -- he's been doing it since the '70's and at one time in his career he was tinting 15-17 cars a day -- his average time now to tint a car, start to finish, is 42 minutes) and he even turns down tint removal jobs because he hates it so much.