GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

I just tried to tint the windows in my vibe, the side ones are ok but i tried to do the hatch in one peice, but it has too large of a compound curve in it and all i got were finger wrinkles, had to strip it off and put on 4 smaller strips (temporarily) but it looks bad, tried to join them at the grid lines but you can still see some air lines there. What I wanted to know was how to the pro's do these compound curve windows in one pass? how do they shrink the tint? Im sure it's not that hard, but no-one in my province (Labrador) does tinting so i have to do it myself.

i think they use a hairdryer type thing and push the hair out..i would never attempt tint unless i knew exactly how to do it..it's one of those things where..sure..it may look good now..but wait in a year or 2..and see how it'll look.besides most tint places has warrenty..my old tint on the fire had a 5 year warrenty on it..so i never had to worry about it bubbling or anything

Check out:http://www.tintdude.com/They have very good tips. I too did try to shrink the film with a heat gun but it didn't turn out very well. I ended up doing what you did with strips. I don't mind the breaks too much. It's just to keep my dog a bit cooler in the back on sunny days.

They did mine by cutting the tint and placing the individual strips in between the defroster coils. You could try that, but it would probably take a long time. Personally I would just have it done professionally that way it looks nice and not all crappy.

Thanks for the replies, I done mine in strips, joining it at the grid lines and it looks ok from the outside, but not perfect from the inside, I heard of people putting powder down and laying the tint on it, then using a heat gun to genly shrink the tint to fit, then installing it like normal. I have no problem tinting windows, just not good at the shrink method.....

What my tinter did was lay the film on the ouside of the hatch glass (make sure both the film and glass are UBER-wet) then used a heatgun to smooth it out then trim it (got to really take your time with the heatgun).I also tried to tint the car myself with the smaller strips but I eventually just gave up and let him tint the car for me.

Quote, originally posted by 2ruSpeed »What my tinter did was lay the film on the ouside of the hatch glass (make sure both the film and glass are UBER-wet) then used a heatgun to smooth it out then trim it (got to really take your time with the heatgun).I also tried to tint the car myself with the smaller strips but I eventually just gave up and let him tint the car for me.Outside? Eek that won't last.

Haha should have added he transfered it into the inside afterwards. He just made the template on the outside first to get the curvature.

i've got some silver DIY tint, i've been hesitant to put it on cause i don't want it to look like crap, even though i got it for 99 cents a roll

Most pro shops now have a machine that will cut the tint into the pattern of your rear window. This way there are strips in between each defroster line.