[Rmtt]

Originally Posted by slowgan

I have a friend that does this for a living. He said if you want to avoid it they can put a black vinyl strip over it and you wont notice the difference.

+1. My tint guy does this on all my cars. He even pointed it out to me and explained what they do with the vinyl strip when I bought this last Corvette and the tint looked rough all over from a poor job.

He's done a ton of past cars for me...and I had never noticed or knew they had to do that.

[KillaManjango]

I have the same thing going on with my 335i. I reached out to a few local shops and get pretty much the same answer and everyone else. I did find one shop that has experience with tinting dot matrix's, they say that they apply a thin layer of clear glue to fill the spaces between the dots before they apply the tint.

I thought about pulling the trigger on this but I'm also cautious because the tint has been removed and reapplied several times and I've heard a few horror stories about broken defrost wires cracking windows and melting tint.

[iqraceworks]

I'm on the fence about what to do. It seems like for all the people who say "it's crap, have them redo it"....there is an equal amount of people saying "it's normal, mine is the same way".

[Wolf 335]

I skipped on tinting because of tint not sticking to the dot matrix on the rear window.

I saw the black vinyl method and from inside on a sunny day looks like a purple strip.

Some shops sand the dots, for me it wasn't worth it, and you risk damaging the wiring.

[53N30W]

10 years ago my shop recommended that they tint only up to the matrix and not over it. I hardly notice it and its still perfect 10 year on

[dwashy]

I couldn't live with that

[Wolf 335]

Originally Posted by 53N30W

10 years ago my shop recommended that they tint only up to the matrix and not over it. I hardly notice it and its still perfect 10 year on

Would you mind sharing a pic?

[53N30W]

here you go

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

Originally Posted by 53N30W

here you go

Looks ok from outside but the inside would drive me crazy seeing that.

OP my car has it in the rear and it's perfect. I need to double check and get pics maybe there is actually a vinyl strip under.

[iqraceworks]

I called another local tint shoot, and they are telling me that they can make it look much better.... something about using some clear glue to stick the tint to the glass and dots in that area. The guy I talked to seemed very knowledgeable about the issues with the 335i glass. Wish I would have went to them in the first place.

I will post up some pics next week after it's done.

[Wingnutts]

It can be done so that the dots are not prevelant. How, couldn't tell you, but as I posted earlier my 328i looks like ass. My 335is looks great.

[Wizwalker]

Did you ever get it fixed? How does your car look now? I was interested in stripping the lighter tint on my e90 and replacing it with slightly darker tint so all of the windows would match. After reading this thread, however, I'm having doubts.

[Ozzie335i]

Same look here from day uno due the the dot matrix on the antenna. BTW, that looks pretty dark to me.

[ryan stewart]

Originally Posted by b92

Dot matrices are very difficult to tint, the shop that did my last E92 said it was impossible but the shop that did my 335is had no issue.

I don't know enough about the practice, but it seems to be a competency thing..

Mine has maybe a little bit of gap but the woman who did mine really took her time in the area, heated the tint, etc, so it she could compress it enough to touch the glass between the dots.

Also its the 3m crystalline stuff so might be thinner/more flexible.

[Wolf 335]

Originally Posted by iqraceworks

I called another local tint shoot, and they are telling me that they can make it look much better.... something about using some clear glue to stick the tint to the glass and dots in that area. The guy I talked to seemed very knowledgeable about the issues with the 335i glass. Wish I would have went to them in the first place.

I will post up some pics next week after it's done.

Update?

[Jake13]

Take it back.

[iqraceworks]

Originally Posted by Wolf 335

Update?

***UPDATE***

So I found a different shop in town, and let them take a look at the tint job from the first place that did such a terrible job around the "dot-matrix" area. They ended up cutting the tint and peeling it off where it went over the dot-matrix area. They then went back with a black vinyl, and put that over the same area.

It's looks much better now...you can barely see any difference where it transitions from regular glass, to the dot matrix area.

I'll try to get a picture tomorrow in the daylight.

[BavariasMostWanted]

My tint from '10 just now started to look like that... take it back asap!

[Wolf 335]

Originally Posted by iqraceworks

***UPDATE***

So I found a different shop in town, and let them take a look at the tint job from the first place that did such a terrible job around the "dot-matrix" area. They ended up cutting the tint and peeling it off where it went over the dot-matrix area. They then went back with a black vinyl, and put that over the same area.

It's looks much better now...you can barely see any difference where it transitions from regular glass, to the dot matrix area.

I'll try to get a picture tomorrow in the daylight.

Could you post a pic from inside on a sunny day?

[zack9r]

Originally Posted by iqraceworks

Here is a better close up picture....it looks like that on both sides of the window, but the right side is a little worse.

That just screams laziness.

Worst comes to worst, say you'll leave a bad review showing your situation your concerns my dad owns a (somewhat) large company and trust me when i say that they care more about those than you think

[gunnerxq]

Everyone saying it's normal but it's not. My tints were put on 7 years ago over the dots and they're still not peeling off.

Edit: I guess pre LCI has a lot less dots only around the edges. But it's still not peeling anywhere.

[Timothi2]

I would never accept that. There are a couple of things that could have happened there. They probably didn't heat the window enough when applying the tint, or didn't bother to check the tint as it's drying to make sure nothing is coming away from the window. My dad's been tinting cars for 30+ years, taught me how to tint when I was young. If one of his customers brought back a car that looked like that, he would redo it without question. Dot complexes make the job more difficult, but that's no excuse to dismiss the film coming away as normal.