[jackpollard]

Hey all;

I think I may of put my other post about this in the wrong thread, so I thought I would start my own.

I hate complaining about a place, but man am I frustrated with the tint place, I've wasted 8 hours of my life and over $400 and my rear still looks terrible.
Maybe I'm expecting too much, I understand those micro dots can be an issue, but 80% looks good.

Anyway, let me sum it up; I bought my 2012 335i coupe in Va. and when I went to inspect in MD. my rear tint was 33%!! It was off by 2%!!! I do my research and I find what I thought was the best place to get tint and go to have all the old tint taken off and new put on. I went with the Formula One Pinnacle so I know its as good quality as they have.

I wait close to 5 1/2 hours and get it back. I'm in a hurry to get it registered so take a quick look, I understand it takes a week or 2 to set, but it looked pretty bad. But again, I know I have to wait a bit.

A few days later it looks worse, especially around the rear brake light. I bring it back and they redo it totally. It's been 2 weeks, and again, it looks pretty bad. Bad enough that a co-worked asked who did that crappy tint job. I was pretty embarrassed.

Is this normal? I've never gotten tint before. They are super nice people and seem to have no issue trying to help, but I'm starring to wonder if they can do it or if its even possible?

I've contacted them and they said they will try again, but they sent pictures this time to show me other cars with the dots looking bad also.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Anyone know a guaranteed good place? I'm ready to just go back and tell em to peel it off and give me my money back.

[BMB063]

Originally Posted by jackpollard

Hey all;

I think I may of put my other post about this in the wrong thread, so I thought I would start my own.

I hate complaining about a place, but man am I frustrated with Absolute Tint, I've wasted 8 hours of my life and over $400 and my rear still looks terrible.
Maybe I'm expecting too much, I understand those micro dots can be an issue, but 80% looks good.

Anyway, let me sum it up; I bought my 2012 335i coupe in Va. and when I went to inspect in MD. my rear tint was 33%!! It was off by 2%!!! I do my research and I find what I thought was the best place to get tint and go to have all the old tint taken off and new put on. I went with the Formula One Pinnacle so I know its as good quality as they have.

I wait close to 5 1/2 hours and get it back. I'm in a hurry to get it registered so take a quick look, I understand it takes a week or 2 to set, but it looked pretty bad. But again, I know I have to wait a bit.

A few days later it looks worse, especially around the rear brake light. I bring it back and they redo it totally. It's been 2 weeks, and again, it looks pretty bad. Bad enough that a co-worked asked who did that crappy tint job. I was pretty embarrassed.

Is this normal? I've never gotten tint before. They are super nice people and seem to have no issue trying to help, but I'm starring to wonder if they can do it or if its even possible?

I've contacted them and they said they will try again, but they sent pictures this time to show me other cars with the dots looking bad also.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Anyone know a guaranteed good place? I'm ready to just go back and tell em to peel it off and give me my money back.

The rear tint on my car looks exactly the same and I've seen others like it too. That's not to say it's correct though. I am super anal about stuff like that, but mine came that way and it hasn't changed or got worse so I assume it's just because the little black dots come down so far and are very close together. I assume there's nothing for the tint to hold to. The only other option would be to get the tint to start lower, but that might look weird...

I am surprised the shop didn't tell you there isn't much they can do because that's what I assume. I am not one to settle for less, but seems that this is a situation you can't do much about. It sucks you had it redone, but either way you would have done it because it was illegal right? Maybe it makes you feel better knowing others have it too?!

[trohde78]

Sorry about the issues. My tint shop used black vinyl at the top of the rear window, and it still looks perfect after nearly 3 years. I think that this is the only real solution to the dot issue.

[trohde78]

I don't have a close up photo, but here it is from a distance. It just looks black like the border area around the window in your photo.

[jackpollard]

Thanks for both responses, much appreciated. I did read up on the dot issue but its such a mixed bag, some folks say no problem, some are worse.

The worst part of it is the fact I was just over by 2% and the original tint job was factory so it was perfect.

I've heard mention of the vinyl trick, maybe that's the way to go. I checked out some pics people posted and it does not look bad.

[HooDat]

my dot matrices are sooo much worse than that... very disappointing. I thought about using the vinyl or even a roof spoiler. I wonder if a little bit of heat, pressure and focus on those areas would get rid of those bubbles.

[jackpollard]

Originally Posted by HooDat

my dot matrices are sooo much worse than that... very disappointing. I thought about using the vinyl or even a roof spoiler. I wonder if a little bit of heat, pressure and focus on those areas would get rid of those bubbles.

I was wondering the same thing with the heat and pressure. I think I'm going to bring it back again to see what they can do. Good luck with yours, I knw what a bummer it is.

[trohde78]

It's really dirty, but you get the idea. ;-)

[jackpollard]

Originally Posted by trohde78

It's really dirty, but you get the idea. ;-)

Thanks for taking the time to post this. That looks much better then the white non-stick dot areas.
I think thats the way I'm going to go. When I mentioned it to the tint place, they knew about it and I'm going to go back and they are going to show me how it looks.
Again, thanks!

[trohde78]

Not a problem! Good luck!

[catcher22]

Hmm, that's pretty bad. You can almost see your seats through some of the areas where the tint didn't stick to the dot matrix. I can't believe a tint shop would find that acceptable. To give them credit though, this is an issue on cars with dot matrix and it's VERY difficult to get it to look good.

If it makes you feel better, mine is not perfect either, but I got it done several years ago by a guy who had already done several e90+ and knew techniques to make the dot matrix not look so bad.

The only way to get it to look 100% right is to use vinyl on that top part, but vinyl is of course opaque and you'll lose complete visibility from the top portion of your rear window.

[trohde78]

Honestly, the vinyl is so high up that I don't even see it in the rear view mirror. I actually forgot it was even there until I read this post. :-)

[Fundguy1]

Should have it done in Florida. Road trip. They do so many they rarely screw up.

[Fundguy1]

Cheaper too. $250 all windows ceramic llumar or 3M.

[Maverick5013]

As a professional Window tinter and knowing how much you probably spent on Formula One Pinnacle Ceramic Window film I can tell you that you are not expecting too much. By the looks of the picture the place that installed the rear window film didnt properly prepare the back window. However, the dots at the top of the window looks actually pretty good. The white lines on either side of the defroster are a clear sign of this. as far as the time it would take. no 2 or 4 door car should take more than 3 hours. Unless of course they are removing previous film. My Good friend runs a shop in Frederick MD called Frederick Window Tinting. He uses SolarGard Ultra Performance Ceramic which when you are talking about True ceramic films they are mostly the same.

[TBN54]

^
My man joined the forums just to find this one tint post.

Win.

[Maverick5013]

Haha. I just bought E93 as well.