Goldenhue22

Which is the better window tint? The smoke tint or the mirrored tint? Personally, I love the mirrored tint but I think it attracts cops more. I plan on tinting all but the winshield (regardless of law). Can you have different degrees (or %) of MIRRORED tint, like you can with the smoke tint? Or is it all just standard.

neit_jnf

Mirrored tints come in all % ratings

wakeech

i really like the mirrored finish tint... it's bling bling without being cheezy, heavy, or (IMO) overly gaudy, especially on an all black car.

RotorGeek

I personally like the Black tints on my cars.

lefuton

when i see mirrored tint, i just think ghetto...but then again i live in LA.

ZoomZoom

I agree.

Hercules

Seconded here too.

chinx

i like the mirror tint when it's not really overt, meaning not exactly like a mirror but just more reflexive than smoked tints. i don't like it when the windows look just like a silver pane of mirror; i agree, that is kinda ghetto. but sometimes when it's all smoked and dark that's kinda ghetto, too :D

anyway, when i do get my 8 i don't think i'd tint it at all...unless it came from factory already with semi-tinted glasses

8_wannabe

Sorry, keech -- it IS cheezy, guady and pimpy. But hey, it's your car so it don't matter what the rest of us think. Make yourself happy and the rest of us can suck wind.

javahut

Yeah, I kind of like the slightly mirrored tint, with kind of a color to it... like blue maybe. Kind of like Raikkonen's face shield in F1. But I've been told the metallic tint will interfere with radio reception. Also, it's not gonna match the tint on the moon roof, so I think I'll stick with the smoked. But I don't think I'm gonna get it too dark. Maybe 35% on rear glass and back doors, 55% on front doors.

blizz81

Even when I see the bronzish OEM rear mirror tint on the RX300's (at least the first gen) I think ghetto.

I'm partial to good quality, black smoke. Not the stuff that will purple out in a couple years, like my current rears in the maxima from the previous owner...

Superfan

All the new Merc's that i've seen have this light blueish hue to the windows. I think it's kinda gay but does anyone know the benefit of it?

Sputnik

The blueish tint is to cut down on certain glare. Just like those orange helmet shields or amber aviator glasses are also designed to cut down on certain glare.

I find that it is very hard to find a silver or bronze mirror type tint that matches well with a car. It can work, but you have to get it right, or it looks out of place, and very "hacky". Black, or smoke, just blends in so much more readily with all colors.

There was a trick that I saw once (picture attached). Industrial tint (for office buildings and the like) can come in a wide assortment of colors. They also have this setup where they put on a "color" tint (one that is light, and doesn't really cut down on light, its just there for the color), and then put a plain silver mirror tint on afterwards. On this one yellow car, they installed a yellow color layer, and then mirror tint. The tint color wasn't all that close to the color of the car, but that simple hint of yellow blended with the car very well. And you can change the effect by different levels of mirror tint.

Oh yeah, the % rating refers the the amount of light that is transmitted. For example, 50% tint means 50% of the outside light is let through. 35% tint meants that basically 1/3rd of the outside light is let in. "Limo" tint is normally around 20% (or 1/5th of the light allowed through). If you want something like 10% in some back window, sometimes an installer will put on a layer of 20%, then a layer of 50%.

---jps