How To: Remove your Window Tint

buy your ride out of state w/ tinted windows to find out your state considers it illegal? read on, my friends, for an easy way to remove your tint and all the "goo" that sticks it on.

*NOTE*-rear windshields with defroster or antenna wires molded in would be recommended to take to a professional to remove the tint.

this tutorial is based on hands on experience which was experienced about an hour ago.

materials: a hair-dryer/heat gun, a razor blade, a warm soap-water solution, newspaper, degreasing wipes (optional), towel

preparation: roll your towel up to a little snake like tube and lay it on the inside of your window along the bottom to prevent any tint from falling into your door.

removal: start by rolling your window 1/2 way down. you're going to need 2 people for the removal. open the door and have one person hold the hair-dryer on the HOT setting. have him/her really concentrate on the areas you are peeling off. take your razor blade and, if you can, start peeling off one of the corners being careful not to break the tint. (don't worry, your windows won't scratch). if you can't get a corner, get it started somewhere in the middle.

very carefully and very slowly, peel back the window tint off of your window while the hair-dryer person blows hot air on the parts of the tint (on the outside of the window) that receive the most stress from the pulling. i would simply peel a little back from the left or right edge, peel back the raised center, and peel back the opposite side. repeat. this should all be done at a very slow pace. if you peel to fast, you may rip the tint and end up with more work for yourself in the long run.

*NOTE* sometimes a little section of your tint might "boat" or stay stuck to the window while the tint surrounding it is peeled away. simply slice at it with your razor blade and be careful not to split it any more.

as you get lower in your window, roll your window up more and more until eventually it is all the way up. the bottom is the easiest part. it will probably come off in one continuous swipe, but if it doesn't, it is real easy to get started again. be sure to have the hair dryer guy blow on the areas of tint which are receiving the most stress. this allows the tint to become more flexible in it's removal and makes it resistant to tearing.

on one of my windows, i got lucky and peeled off the whole sheet with minimal boating and no adhesive residue or "goo" remaining. on the other window, much of the adhesive remained and it looked like a super dirty window. take your warm soapy water and spray the major adhesive areas. take your razor blade and slice away as much as you can. do all this while your hair dryer person blows hot air on the problem areas (from the outside, as usual).

*NOTE* make sure your towel is still laying over the bottom of the window so none of the water goes into your door, which could eventually rust and cause u major pain.

once you have it as clean as you can get it with the razor, spray the whole inside of the window with your soapy water. crumble up a newspaper and wipe as much of the adhesive off as you can. you can use degreasing wipes on the problem areas to make it easier to wipe away. the ingredients of the wipes will cut through the adhesive like a hot knife through your dashboard. when all is said and done, take your towel and wipe the rest of the window dry.

congratulations...you will now pass inspection. just be careful of emissions, and lights they dont' like. inspection heads can be pretty gay like that.

Thanks for the indepth step by step...I bought my car and it's got a film on but it doesnt tint them at all and I can't get em tinted until I remove these...thanks bro!

Worked out great for me ............Thanks alot....
Lucky13

a different way u could remove window tint is to go to lowes and get '0000' steel wool and ammonia. use gloves and make sure u have a lot of ventilation. put the ammonia on any way u can, with a cloth, in a spray bottle, etc. then rub the sticky stuff off with the steel wool. its a lot of work, but thats how the pros remove it. this is after u peel the tint off. the tint is the easy part. u can do this on the defroster windows also.

[94_AcCoRd_EX]

Thermalfi'd asked me to watch over his forum because he's busy, so I'm going to lock and sticky this thread.